


Hungry Dogs Are Never Loyal

by LoyalToTheFreaks



Category: Sally Face (Video Games)
Genre: Alcohol, Angst, Criminal Sal Fisher, Drug Use, Edgy, Fluff, I am very tired, M/M, Mafia AU, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Sally Face - Freeform, Slow Burn, Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-02
Updated: 2019-06-17
Packaged: 2020-01-01 01:50:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 7
Words: 27,824
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18326249
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LoyalToTheFreaks/pseuds/LoyalToTheFreaks
Summary: Sal Fisher met evil at the age of three, and it's toughened him up since then.What follows is the aftermath of him having joined the American mafia stationed in sleepy Nockfell where nothing ever happens. That is, until an abnormally cheerful idiot enters Sal's life—or vice versa, to be truthful.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> hey howdy folks, welcome to my shame :)  
> i really like Sally Face and i kind of wanted to contribute to this fandom, so here's the mafia au you didn't know you needed. also i'm not sure exactly where this story is going to go, if it even goes anywhere. for all i know i might never update again, so i hope you enjoy while it lasts? :)

He wasn’t used to people sticking around when the going got rough.

He didn’t blame them. Why would they? There was nothing to gain from a weak link. People who had nothing to offer _were_ nothing. In order to make your way in the world, you must contribute. You must be willing to give back. In his youth, he was impressionable and naive as all children are, and for his innocence he paid the price.

Sal Fisher met evil when he was only a child and it had toughened him up since then.

He’d made his way through life by being everything they couldn’t control. He was a product of war, his hands were scarred from murder, he had to learn how to stitch his own wounds. He never had the chance to be soft; it was always bloody knuckles and broken glass. He was someone who didn’t die when he should have. He was someone who fought because he refused to die quietly.

Sal belonged to a body of criminals who operated on global scales. His gang worked typically in the small, sleepy town of Nockfell in America (mainly because it was considered by the few who knew of its existence as ‘the place where nothing ever happened, ever’), but in his time, he had been to Italy and Ukraine for important meetings and exchanges. They were known by many names, but because police referred to them as the ‘Red-Eyed Demons’, that was the name they’d adopted.

It wasn’t the only nickname he’d embraced—‘Sally Face’ was what he was called by the media and the public on account of his prosthetic and it had stuck. If anything, he liked it. It gave him a title that was bigger than himself, it put him up on a pedestal that he didn’t deserve, didn’t earn.

The prosthetic was acquired at the same time he met evil, at the young age of three. The base of it was white, covered in scratches and stains and there was a darker patch sewn around the right eye of the mask. He’d done the repair job himself after the mask had been grazed by a bullet; it saved his life, but unfortunately, that corner of it hadn’t survived the damage. The face itself was blank, expressionless and empty. He considered himself lucky in comparison to his fellow gang members, who were required to wear masks of their own, but not in the way he did. They had to be stone-cold and not show the slightest hint of hesitance on their face, whereas he had his prosthetic that did it for him. On certain accounts of his own boredom and amusement, when his superiors were talking to him, he would grin maniacally throughout the whole discussion just because they couldn’t tell, or he would stick his tongue out or other crude, hidden gestures.

The leader of their division, Red, a tall, thin man with an affinity for sharp, black suits and getting the upper hand on everybody had assigned Sal a thousand tasks before, ranging from simple maintenance jobs to assassinations, so nothing made this one any different.

Someone had apparently overheard details of a large drug delivery to be shipped out to Lebanon in the coming week and got away before they could be apprehended. That someone was unlucky enough to be Larry Johnson, a twenty-two year old Spainard who lived alone in an apartment complex not far from the workhouse where Sal’s division was stationed. Red had given Sal the assignment to infiltrate Johnson’s apartment, kill him and make it look like a suicide.

On paper, it was an easy task. He’d done it before, he could certainly do it again. Johnson had to be taken care of, lest he run his mouth off to cops regarding information he shouldn’t be spreading. Sal knew it had to be done. Taking another human being’s life made him feel sick, yes, but it was his job. Johnson had it coming, and he had no one but himself to blame.

So at about half-past one in the morning on February first, 1998, Sal stalked down the street wearing pedestrian attire, from the workhouse to the complex where his target resided, a gun tucked discreetly within the inside pockets of his black jacket. He wasn’t wearing his prosthetic for fear of attracting unwanted attention, and instead had a thick scarf wrapped around his face and a hood pulled low.

When he stopped in front of the complex, it was just like how Red had described it and the visuals he’d seen. The ivy crawling up the walls and the crooked sign that read ‘Addison Apartments’ were dead giveaways. He wondered briefly if Johnson knew what he’d gotten himself into, but quickly dismissed the thought—there would be no way he could tell what was coming for him. _Who_ was coming for him. Besides, he preferred not to anthropomorphize his enemies because it made it harder to hurt them. If he just pretended they were mindless animals or broken robots, it made the burden weigh less.

Sal idly shuffled around to the side of the building that he knew Johnson would be nearest, before experimentally tugging on the ivy. There should have been a concealed ladder underneath the thick of it that some of his crew members hid there earlier for him...

His slim fingers abruptly traced cool metal, and sure enough, the ladder was there as promised. Sal didn’t so much as look around before quickly climbing two, three, four floors’ height; he knew he had allies who were watching for any civilian interference, even if he couldn’t see them. He was in the clear and he knew it. When he reached the fourth floor where he knew Johnson was on, Sal peeked inside the corridor window. The hallway was dark and the sounds of snoring rumbled through the level. However, light shone from underneath the bottom of one door—number 402.

Johnson’s room.

Sal cursed internally, knowing if he was awake, his job would be a lot more difficult. There was the screaming to worry about, the guy trying to fight back... but he had a job to do, a job that needed to be done. He efficiently picked the window lock (it was rather easy, considering whomever built them didn’t think anyone would actually be trying to break inside), stealthily crept inside before slowly closing it again so as not to raise any suspicion on security footage—security footage that would indubitably be destroyed. That wasn’t his problem to worry about, though, Red had other guys to worry about tech stuff. Guys like Todd.

He shook his head. _Not the time, stupid._

Sal skulked across the corridor, passing rooms 408 to 403 and stopped in front of the second-to-last one from the elevator. Once again, picking the lock was relatively simple, though it required more effort than the window lock did. It would have probably been faster to climb into Johnson’s bedroom window from the ladder up, but he had been warned that many apartments nowadays were being equipped with security detail that alarmed residents of intruders, which was why the corridor window was a safer bet. The soft _click_ alerted him that he was successful, and he slowly turned the doorknob, opening the door just a tiny crack. Enough to peek in through, not enough to let Johnson know he was about to have an uninvited guest.

The lights were on and now that the door was open, Sal could hear low-volume heavy metal music being played from inside. He couldn’t help himself from raising his eyebrows approvingly at the guy’s similar taste in music as him. He continued to peer inside, waiting for any indication of where Johnson was; after half a minute, his straining ears were met with the familiar sound of a microwave beep, followed by the opening and closing of the machine. And then Larry Johnson, in the flesh, bobbing his head to his music, carrying a steaming bowl of _something_ , made his way from the short distance between the kitchen and his sitting room.

If Johnson had noticed the sliver of the dark hallway between his front door and doorframe, maybe that would have bought him some time. But he didn’t. So when Sal heard him collapse onto a sofa of some sort in the other room, he snuck inside, closed the door and locked it.

If you knew what you were doing, it was disturbingly easy to fake a suicide. Sal quietly removed his prosthetic from one of his inside pockets (the jackets had been designed to fit larger items undetected by unknowing passersby) and after pulling down the scarf, placed it on his face with one hand, while the other buckled up the straps. Perhaps it would have been wiser to keep it off if he intended not to give away his identity, because after all, everybody knew the infamous expressionless mask, but no one knew what it hid. Sal, though, felt more comfortable knowing even a man about to die at his hands saw nothing but blank emptiness in the shape of pale plastic.

He was wearing gloves so as to avoid getting his fingerprints on anything, especially the murder weapon, which, and speaking of, he drew out of the inside pocket of his coat. He took slow, careful, precise steps down the short hall separating the entrance from the sitting room where his target was enjoying a warm bowl of what smelled like... mac and cheese? Sal resisted the urge to gag.

He steadily peeked around the corner and felt a pang of surprise, realizing he had never actually seen a picture of Johnson before. His hair was long (almost to the point of hazardous), messy and tossed flippantly behind him where it sprawled out along the beanbag chair he was sitting on. (A _beanbag chair_. Sal thought he was supposed to be killing a 22-year-old man, not a preteen boy.) It was burnt umber in colour, the kind that looked almost like gold when reflected in the sunlight.

He was wearing an old shirt that fit in amongst the overall trashy vibe of the apartment and the guy inhabiting it. Sal let his gaze drift from the back of Johnson’s head to the front of it, where he was taken aback before he knew it. The man in front of him was lightly tanned in skin tone, though as far as Sal knew, paler by most Spaniard standards; he had a defined jawline decorated with stubble that looked maybe a day or so old, and he had a strong nose, the kind that was probably too big for him when he was younger, the kind that he probably grew into.

Why was he noticing all of this? What did it care what Johnson looked like? Sal reprimanded himself in his head after realizing that he was hesitating. Hesitation gets his comrades killed. He’d waited for long enough. He rounded the corner with no warning and gun pointed at Johnson.

“Don’t scream or I put a bullet in your head.”

Johnson whipped around, eyes widening in fear; he briskly placed his bowl down on the coffee table, stood up, turned towards Sal and raised his hands. “Oh, holy shit, there’s a guy in my house,” he stated to himself.

“Astute observation,” Sal deadpanned. “You’re Larry Johnson?”

“Uh, n-no. I’m Jon Arbuckle,” he grinned nervously, showing a childish gap between his teeth. “I’ve never met a Larry Johnson, you must have chosen the wrong apartment to rob. Hell, I doubt there’s even any Larry Johnsons in this city! You ought to check the next one over, there’s really—”

“Jon Arbuckle is the guy from _Garfield_. If you wanted to trick me, you shouldn’t have chosen a cartoon character’s name, dumbass.”

“Damn it,” Johnson mumbled to himself. “In my defence, I don’t know how many armed robbers know _Garfield_ , plus I’m kind of panicking right now because I’m at gunpoint and Jon Arbuckle was the first name that came to mind.”

“Okay, first things first, you’re not very bright, are you?” Sal inquired, to which Johnson furrowed his eyebrows annoyedly. “Second, this isn’t a robbery. I’m here to kill a certain Larry Johnson, Mr. Arbuckle.”

“I can tell by your blatant sarcasm that you don’t believe that my name is actually Jon Arbuckle.”

“Hm, perhaps you’re a bit cleverer than I thought you were,” Sal quipped. “Where were you two days ago at nine pm?”

“Uh, two days ago... January 29th...” Johnson noted aloud.

“Yeah, that’s two days ago, dipshit.”

“Jesus, keep your shirt on, Michael Myers! I’m panicking, remember? You’re not the one at gunpoint here! Okay, uh, I think I was coming home from work by that point?”

“And did you just so happen to pass the large workhouse by Wendigo Lake?”

“Yeah, it’s between my work and apartment. Why, is that what this is about? You wanna kill me because I went near your meth lab?”

“I don’t _want_ to kill _anyone_!” Sal hissed. “Doesn’t mean I won’t though.” The sentence made him feel sick, but he pressed on. “And the reason I’m here is because you overheard something you weren’t supposed to, and my superiors don’t want that kind of information floating about. They especially don’t want it reaching the wrong ears.”

“The thing about a coke deal with some Manganese people?”

Sal actually snickered at Johnson’s response. “You do realize Manganese is an element on the periodic table, not a race of people?”

“Uh, yes, I knew that. I was just testing you.”

“You know, for someone who’s trying to talk his way out of being shot, you’re not very convincing.”

“You’re right, I usually rely on my dazzling good looks to do the talking for me.”

“What are you, twelve?”

“On a scale of one to ten I am.”

“Okay, enough’s enough. I have to kill you,” Sal asserted firmly and cocked the handgun.

“Why?”

Sal blinked. “Excuse me?”

“I asked why you have to kill me,” Johnson repeated. “Here you are up and calling me stupid, and yet it’s a very simple question.”

The blue-haired man was at a loss for words. “I know what the goddamn question means,” he spat. “The sheer idiocy of it caught me off guard.”

“I didn’t think it was a dumb question,” Larry replied simply. “I feel like if this is the last night I’ll ever be alive, I should get to know why.”

“Yeah, and I already told you. You weren’t supposed to hear what you did.”

“About that drug deal? Dude, come on, I barely even heard who your lot was selling to!” he whined like a child trying to negotiate more time playing computer games. It astounded Sal. He was used to crying, screaming and begging, he was even used to the occasional attempted seduction. He wasn’t used to this.

“Look, it’s not up to me,” Sal explained, his voice lowered. “If I don’t, we’re both gonna die. I work for some dangerous people, Johnson, people who are already going to be judging me for taking this long.”

“If you’re so afraid of them, why do you work for them?”

“ _What_?! I’m not _afraid_ of them!” Sal spluttered incredulously.

“If you weren’t, you’d probably lower the gun,” Johnson pointed out. “Obviously I can’t stop you if this is the choice you make... I don’t blame you for worrying for your own life. But, uh, and this is going to sound controversial, but I doubt you’re a bad guy. I mean, sure, you broke into my apartment and threatened to shoot me in the head if I called for help, but I think you’re a little like me. But shorter, and quite less handsome—”

“A couple bullets in your nose would fix that.”

“Okay, okay, jeez, just joking around. But seriously, I know what it feels like to be scared. I’ve been scared my whole life. No more so than right now, where it seems my life has come to an end, and while my fear is probably nothing compared to yours, I guess what I’m trying to say is that I get it. So I won’t judge you for what you’ve gotta do.”

Sal realized he’d been unconsciously lowering the gun during Johnson’s monologue, and quickly snapped it back up to head-level. The movement made Johnson sigh sadly and look down at his feet.

“I know you already know my name, but I’m Larry Johnson. Can you tell me yours?” he asked, looking back up at Sal with a hopeful gleam in his eyes that Sal could not understand.

There was a beat of silence following Johnson’s question.

“No.”

He wasn’t here to make friends. Johnson was another item on a list and nothing more. All he had to do was pull the trigger and then he could go home. One tiny jerk of his index finger. Such a miniscule movement, and yet it held so much more than just that. He’d hesitated before. He’d had second thoughts before. This was normal. It was normal to feel bad—it was another human being, after all, it would never be easy, no matter what he tried to tell himself. But he had to do it.

He could hear Red’s voice echoing in his mind; _Do it._

Todd’s voice. _Do it._

Ashley’s voice. _Do it._

His dad’s. _Do it._

His mom—

_I love you._

With shaking hands, Sal dropped the gun and backed away, holding his hands out in front of him like they were covered in something foul. And they were—innocent people’s blood. Unconsciously, he kept backing away from the weapon and the man who was supposed to be his target until his back hit the wall. He barely felt it.

“No. No, no, no, no. What the fuck am I doing. I can’t do this. Oh my god. I—”

His vision was blurring together and his breathing began to increase, but remembering where he was, in Johnson’s home, the man he was supposed to kill, he took several deep breaths and straightened out his back so that he was standing at his full height (an unimpressive 5’3”, but his full height nonetheless, and that much made him look slightly more sure of himself).

“I’m not going to kill you, dude,” he managed to rasp out.

He didn’t know how to feel when Johnson smiled and shoved his hands into his pockets as if he was having a casual discussion about where they were going out to eat.

“I didn’t really think you would. No offence, but you don’t really seem like the assassin type.”

“Uh, thanks?”

They were both silent for a few moments; the tension in the air was stifling.

“So, um... what happens now?” Johnson asked.

Sal ran his hand down his mask anxiously. “Uh... okay, first things first. You need to get out of here. Immediately. Leave the country. The continent, even. If my boss finds out you’re still alive, we’re both dead. And you can’t tell anyone what you heard, ‘cuz he’ll find out if you do. You know, maybe for good measure, change your name, too.”

“Uh, I don’t think I’m gonna do that. I’m still kind of paying rent, and you know how legal contracts are,” Johnson said with a weak laugh. “I own this place for another two years before I’m really allowed to move again.”

“Yeah, you’re right, just stay here and wait for someone else to kill you. Excellent plan.”

“How ‘bout I just come with you and I can talk things over with your boss?” Johnson offered enthusiastically. It made Sal want to grab him by the shoulders and physically shake some sense into him, but at the same time, bang his own head against the wall until he passed out or died. Preferably the latter, by this point.

“You just get stupider every second, don’t you?” Sal asked honestly.

“What? No, I’m serious! I’ll tell him what you told me, and maybe we can work something out!”

“You’re literally just offering to deliver yourself to him so he can kill you himself!” Sal cried.

“How do you _know_ he’ll kill me?” the taller man asked, crossing his arms inquisitively.

“Do you _know_ what the mafia is?”

“Well, I mean, I’ve watched a lot of mafia movies. Does that count?”

Sal groaned and slapped his hands to his prosthetic before dragging them down his false face angrily. “You’re so dead. Nothing I can do or say will save you. You’re just determined to die, aren’t you?”

Johnson’s face scrunched up in concentration as he thought hard about something. The suicidal little voice in the very back of Sal’s brain murmured under its breath that it was maybe, possibly, just barely a tiny bit cute. That voice was promptly stomped to death by the reasonable parts of Sal’s mind before being lit on fire and spat on. Johnson then snapped his fingers and his face brightened.

“What if you vouch for me?”

“...What?”

“Yeah! What if, like, you told your lot that you came in here and when you tried to kill me, I busted out some super cool ninja moves and fought you off with nothing but my bare hands! And you decided that talent this spectacular just _couldn’t_ be wasted—”

“When I got in, you were eating mac and cheese in your beanbag chair while listening to death metal.”

“—and you _knew_ I had potential, because nobody’s ever been able to catch you off-guard so fast! With lightning speed, I disarmed you and turned your gun on you and had you up against the wall, begging for me to come!”

“...Okay, I know you meant that to sound cool and ninja-y, but it just took an extremely sexual turn. And I can’t express how much I hate it.”

Johnson registered this information and cringed, face flushed. “Augh, no, you made it weird!”

Sal’s ears were burning. “You made it weird!”

“It wouldn't have been gross if you hadn’t said anything!”

“No, it wouldn’t have been gross if you could actually hear yourself talk! Ugh, just—whatever, come on. We might as well get going,” Sal resigned himself. “But I’m not going to say anything about ninja shit because you look like you’d trip over your own feet before you could _disarm_ someone, let alone _me_. I’ll tell Red I think you could be useful, maybe in terms of information or something... do you have any skills? Anything you’re good at?”

“You ask me that as if you’re genuinely not sure!” Johnson huffed. “... _Are_ you genuinely not sure?”

“Do you want me to answer that honestly?”

“No, not really. But, I mean, I can speak Spanish? Uh, I’m pretty good on the guitar, I don’t know if being devilishly handsome is a skill, but I’m going to include it anyway, though I’m sure that was a given, my abuela taught me how to knit when I was younger—”

“The Spanish is enough. Also, I asked for skills, not hobbies. If you can translate for other Spanish partners and don’t mind working for low pay, I’m sure you could get off relatively easy. But I have to warn you now, because as of this moment you only have two options. You can try and get as far away from Nockfell as possible, or—”

“I’ll stay.”

The confidence in Johnson’s voice was enough to make Sal raise his eyebrows behind his prosthetic.

“I didn’t even tell you the other option.”

“I like Nockfell,” he replied. “I don’t want to leave just because some emo twink told me to—no offence. I’m not scared of your mafia pals.” Johnson grinned wide and goofily, and it made Sal’s heart skip a beat for reasons he didn’t understand nor did he want to understand.

“I’m going to ignore the emo twink remark for your sake—you’re welcome. And in regards to not being scared, you should be, dude. I don’t think you understand what’s at stake here. This is your _life_ on the line that we’re talking about. Don’t you get that? This is a one-way ticket to a train you can’t get off of. Ever.”

Johnson stopped at that, and brought his hand back up to his chin and resumed his extreme thinking face. Then he let his arms fall to his side and looked around his apartment from where he stood.

“Well, I’ve got nothing else to do,” he reasoned. It was single handedly the stupidest, lamest, most idiotic answer in the entire universe, and the foolish smile Johnson was giving him would not allow Sal to say no. So he shook his head amusedly and motioned for him to follow.

“C’mon, we should get going. I’m already taking longer than I should be.”

“Wait, right now? Should I bring anything? Can I finish my mac and cheese? I should turn off the music, shouldn’t I? Hold on, how long will we be out? When are we coming back? Do you—”

“Oh my god, do you have an off-switch?” Sal groaned.

Johnson wiggled his eyebrows in an attempt at seductively. “Yeah, it’s right next to the—”

“Finish that sentence and I’ll cut your tongue out, steamroll you, scrape you off the pavement and feed your remains to crows.”

“That’s mildly terrifying and horrifically vivid, but fair,” Johnson laughed. “How about this, I’ll just get dressed since I doubt your mafia buddies won’t take me seriously in pyjamas, grab my phone, then we’ll go. That okay?”

“Leave your phone here. Trust me, it’ll be better for everyone if you don’t bring it,” Sal negotiated. At that, Johnson nodded and gave Sal a mock salute.

“You got it, captain. In the meantime, make yourself at home, more so than you already have, considering you broke in.”

Johnson turned to make a beeline for his bedroom, when something possessed Sal to dig a hole deeper than he already was.

“It’s Sal.”

“What?” Johnson asked, swivelling back around to face Sal, who kept his eyes focused on his combat boots, thankful that the taller man couldn’t see his pink cheeks underneath the mask.

“My name—I—er, y-you asked earlier. It’s Sal. You might know me as Sally Face, though.”

“Hmm,” Larry thought aloud before replying, “nope, doesn’t sound familiar. I’ll be out in a sec, new BFF!”

“What did you call me?”

“New BFF! We’re pretty much besties now, it’s a given,” Johnson called from his room, and Sal leaned against the bare wall next to the door with a grin.

“I don’t know how many friends _you’ve_ made that’ve tried to kill you beforehand, but I feel obligated to tell you that it doesn’t usually work this way.”

“You’d be surprised,” was Johnson’s jokey response, causing Sal to bark out a laugh that the unexpected answer.

_Maybe this isn’t so bad after all,_ offered the little voice that Sal thought had been successfully stomped to death, and yet it just seemed to keep coming back.

He shook his head. No. Johnson wasn’t his friend. He only told him his name because he wasn’t trying to kill him anymore. That was it.

_Is it?_

_Shut the fuck up._


	2. Nicknames

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sal introduces Larry to the Red-Eyed Demons.

It was incredible how fast Sal had gone from considering Johnson annoying to wanting to slit his throat to shut him up, because wow, he  _ never stopped talking _ . 

“Do you usually wear this assassin getup, or was it just for tonight? Is it like in the mafia movies where you all wear expensive tuxedos, or was that all just Hollywood propaganda? I think I’ve only ever worn fancy suits like that a couple times in my life, like at my mom’s friend’s wedding and at prom. Oh, do mobsters go to prom? I bet you did—I bet you had a girlfriend who was taller than you. Did she step on you when you were dancing? Oh my god, that’s so funny. Sal, I’m so fucking funny, man.”

After Johnson had gotten dressed and pulled a coat on, they exited the way Sal had entered (which had resulted in Johnson nearly falling multiple stories and breaking his neck), trusting that any footage caught on camera of them would be deleted. Sal, hands shoved into his pockets, had led Johnson down the street he’d initially come towards the workhouse that would determine his fate.  _ Both  _ their fates. 

Sal sighed; since they’d left, he’d tried ignoring Johnson and letting him have a full-on conversation with himself, but that had only proved to be even more bothersome than answering his questions, which he had been doing in the hopes that Johnson would eventually run out. It seemed to be a lost cause. 

“Some of us wear suits. Mostly because they can afford them, though, and they like to show off that they have money.” 

“ _ They _ can afford them? Does that mean you can’t?” Johnson pried curiously. 

“My financial information is _none_ of your business,” Sal hissed dangerously. Anyone else would have realized he was trying to be threatening; whether or not they were actually intimidated, you would think it would just be common courtesy to act scared. Johnson did not get the memo. 

He laughed and if Sal’s hood had been down, Johnson probably would have mussed up his hair as if he were a young nephew who just told a funny joke. 

“Okay, okay, you’re right, I’m sorry, that was crossing a line. Also, uh, what’s your name again? Sorry, I’m not great with names. Or remembering things.”

“Sal.”

“Sal, gotcha. Do you have a last name?”

“I’m not telling you.”

“I’ll just give you one. How about ‘Amander’?”

“What—”

“Get it? Sal Amander?” Johnson grinned childishly, laughing at his own joke. Sal thought it was funny, too, but he refused to admit it.

As they were in the midst of winter, it got darker earlier, but Sal didn’t mind walking. If anything, the nighttime was his favourite time to walk around. It was just you and the black sky with the ghost of a few stars visible through the light pollution of the city. The echoing of cars driving by and white noise all around you, the lack of people that made it feel almost like a dream, the ominous aura of street lights reflecting off the ground and puddles, knowing that the houses you’re walking by conceal somebody’s memories, somebody’s past, present and future, somebody’s life, but you’re just passing by. 

One would think it made him feel small, but it was empowering, if anything; empowering because there was so much life going on around him, so many opportunities for so many people, and he was just one person walking home in the dark—he was nothing more than a background character in somebody else’s story. And some days, he’d give anything to be nothing more than a background character. But he was who he’d always be: the freak with the mask who could always stand out in a crowd without even saying a word.

“If you call me ‘Salamander’ ever again, I’m going to personally deliver your head on a stake to your mother. Now, we need to go over some rules if you’re going to make a good impression, alright?”

Johnson scoffed. “I know my table manners,  _ mom _ .”

“This isn’t about manners,” Sal said, shaking his head. “You just need to stay quiet and don’t say anything unless I tell you to, or unless you’re spoken to first. My boss is always looking to hire a sucker for low pay, and keep in mind that he often doesn’t see the value in others’ lives, so he won’t hesitate to put a bullet in your head if you upset him.”

Larry nodded slowly. “Seems like a great guy.”

Sal sighed. “You bet. Have you ever been dangled from a balcony by your ankles when you misbehaved?”

“Your boss is your  _ dad _ ?!” Johnson cried, apparently disregarding everything else in that sentence, somehow. “That’s so cool!” 

“He’s not my dad,” Sal replied. “How did you get that from what I said at all? My point is, you need to follow my instructions, okay?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Johnson waved his hand dismissively. “You don’t have to worry about me, Salvestor, I’m pretty much the nicest person I know.”

Sal grabbed Johnson’s jacket sleeve fiercely and tugged him down to his own height (he was at least a foot taller than Sal); “No, this isn’t a _game_ , Johnson. I don’t have time for your jokes. I’m doing everything I can to keep you alive, but if you don’t take this seriously, you _will_ _die_ regardless of what I do _._ Capiche?”

Johnson was quiet for a moment, and the flash of guilt in his eyes did not go unnoticed by Sal. Did he feel bad about acting immature, or perhaps was he just a little more frightened than he was letting on? His following answer did not sate either of Sal’s curiosities. 

“You know... you can call me Larry,” he said. 

“We’re not on first name basis.” Sal let go of Johnson’s sleeve and continued down the street, keeping his head low. His taller counterpart strutted to walk by his side, his strides being so much longer than Sal’s, meaning he didn’t have to worry about losing him. 

They crossed the old, long bridge that was built above a river that spilled into Wendigo Lake. Both men were very familiar with the bridge, but had very different experiences on it. Surrounding the lake was rough terrain; difficult to build on, but loads of fun for kids to run around in. The workhouse was close by. 

“You told me to call you Sal,” he reminded cheekily. 

“It was a knee-jerk reaction,” Sal groaned. “Call me Fisher, got it?”

“Sal Fisher,” Johnson repeated. “Salamander Fisher. Salvestor Fisher. Sal-diego Fisher. Sal the pal. Silly Sally. S—”

“Would you fucking stop?”

“Sorry, Sally.”

“ _ Fisher _ !” 

“My bad. Sally Fisher.”

“Jesus Christ,” the shorter man grumbled, running his hands down his prosthetic. 

“Oh, so now you’re playing god?” Johnson grinned toothily. The furious glare Sal gave him in response was enough to temporarily cause him to fall out of step. “Whoa, okay, I’m done. Sorry, dude. Er—Fisher. For real, though, we almost there?”

“Yeah. You see the lake?” he asked, pointing past the bridge. Johnson nodded. “It’s pretty near the river bank. You’ll know it because of the seven-metre barbed-wire fence.”

“ _ That’s _ what that place is!” he revelled with a snap of his fingers. “I always thought it was some sort of power plant or government facility!” 

“Quite the opposite, really.” 

The pair lapsed into what seemed to be becoming their normal routine, what with Johnson talking Sal’s head off and Sal picking up bits and pieces through his conscious choice to ignore Larry as they neared the workhouse. It was about another twenty, thirty minutes before they reached it. 

The fence was higher up close, the wire atop it looking sharper than usual. Perhaps a daunting warning, goading Sal into shanking Johnson right then and there and getting it all over with. He goes on with his life, Red doesn’t string him up sideways, and he continues to work against the law. 

The thought forced him to look up at Johnson, who did not look back at Sal. Their legs both seemed to be on autopilot, continuing to carry their bodies closer to the small fortress, and the former was staring up in awe at the sight with what appeared to be a mixture of emotions. 

Intrigue, anticipation, anxiety...

Sal shook his head angrily. Johnson didn’t deserve this. He didn’t know what he was signing up for. God, it would probably be more merciful of him to have killed him back in the apartment—

They stopped in front of the fence gate that was secured by a plethora of locks. As always, dogs roamed around the inside of the enclosure, looking as menacing and ferocious as they ever did. To Sal, anyway. To the unsuspecting eye, though, these dogs just seemed weird. They looked at people as if they were calculating their next move—apprehend or ignore. If you tried to pet them, they accepted the gesture stiffly, like a person receiving an unexpected hug from an unliked peer, before continuing to scout out the fenceline. They reminded Sal of robots with one programmed purpose. They were terrifyingly calm, always with an air about them that sent shivers down the spine and made Sal want to cry. He knew beneath that composure they displayed, those dogs were creatures of great capability to harm. Whether or not the myth was true that dogs could smell fear, he was sure his was obvious enough for them to see. 

Inside the fence was a large workhouse that hosted meetings, interrogations, exchanges, all of that good mafia stuff. And it was the fate that awaited them inside that scared him more than the dogs outside. 

“Sa—sorry, Fisher? You alright, dude?” Johnson’s voice asked, though it was muffled, almost as if he were hearing it from underwater. Sal briskly shook his head and clenched his fists in an attempt to ground himself from his fear. 

“Yeah, I’m fine. Hang on, lemme get these locks off. Once I do, you walk through slowly with your hands to your sides. People are watching—you don’t want to come off as threatening, or you’ll be shot on sight.”

“Uh, sure, okay.” 

Johnson thankfully allowed Sal to work in silence as he twisted the combinations to their respective orders. Usually there would be people roaming amongst the dogs to open the doors for them, but considering it was past two in the morning, most people were at home in bed. Sal deeply wished that’s where he could be right now... 

One by one, the locks had been opened, and soon enough, the door welcomed them inside. 

“One other thing,” Sal added quickly, noticing the dogs’ gaze trained dangerously on them. “When we take a step inside, get down on your knees.”

“What? Why?”

“I was obviously just about to get to that—it’s a code that...  _ those _ things... understand. If you try to just walk in, they’ll attack you.”

“Okay, so just kneel to the dogs and we’re good to go?”

“Pretty much. Now get inside.”

He didn’t fail to see the way some of the dogs perked up at their entry. They knew the rule. They were waiting. 

Sal pushed Johnson inside and then swiftly dropped to his knees, anxiously keeping his head bowed. He didn’t want to look at them. Johnson followed suit but acted slower than Sal did. He wasn’t as scared as Sal was, though. One would think having to deal with these things every day of your life would grant you some resilience to them, and it did—he had gone from refusing to even go anywhere near the damn creatures to being on the verge of a breakdown every time he did. So hey, improvement. 

The soft padding of their feet against the ground grew louder as the dogs crept in around them. 

“F-Fisher, are they supposed to be doing that?” Johnson hissed, eyes darting between the ever-nearing animals. Sal shushed him. 

“Yes, this is normal. Now shut the fuck up.”

They plodded up to the two men and sniffed. Their faces being so close to him made Sal shiver and squeeze his eyes shut. 

_ Not the time. Not the time. Not the time. Don’t freak out, don’t you fucking dare freak out. They’re just dogs. Just stupid dogs with their stupid sharp claws and their stupid, horrible teeth _ —

Then they were gone. 

Sal released a breath he didn’t know he’d been holding and opened his eyes; the dogs were trudging away and Johnson was giving him a strange look. 

“What?”

“You’re scared of the dogs, aren’t you?”

“ _ No _ !” Sal growled and pushed Johnson over. It was easy, given that he was on his knees and unbalanced. He landed with a cough and a  _ thud _ in the frosty grass before getting up, completely unphased. 

“It’s okay if you are,” he said with a shrug. “I’m scared of birds.”

Sal narrowed his eyes incredulously. 

“Okay, wait, no, I’m not  _ scared _ of birds, but have you ever seen any apocalypse movies? It’s always the birds that spread the diseases because they’re goddamn everywhere and they shit a whole lot. It’s just  _ convenient _ for them to be the bearer of burdens!” 

“I’m not in the mood for your poetry. Just follow me,” Sal mumbled and started the short trek from the fence to the main building. Johnson’s words resonated with him as they walked in silence. 

_ It’s okay if you are _ . Who did this guy think he was? He didn’t have the right to tell Sal what to or what not to be afraid of, nor did he have the right to  _ accuse _ Sal of being afraid. He needed to mind his damn business, the nosy motherfucker. 

Sal rapped a couple quick knocks on the door and within seconds, a small window had slid open, revealing a pair of cold brown eyes that were scrunched up in a familiar scowl. 

“Whoa! Cool!” Johnson exclaimed, instantly drawing the gaze behind the door onto him. 

“Who the hell is this?” queried the man on the other side of the door. 

“None of your business, Travis,” Sal spat in response, his tolerance for his co-worker’s bullshit razor thin. “He’s with me and that’s all you need to know. Now let me in.”

“He could be Buffy the goddamn Vampire Slayer for all I care, you think I give a shit just because he’s with  _ you _ ? You know the rules, fag. Tell him to step off before he sees something he doesn’t like.” 

“Why not tell me yourself?” Johnson asked, stepping forward and meeting the eyes behind the slot. “I’ve  _ seen _ things, man. Things so horrifying and explicit, you’d probably want to claw out your own eyeballs at the sight of. You think  _ you’ve _ got it bad on the other side of your stupid meth lab fortress? My mom was murdered right in front of me with  _ acid thrown in her face _ . I watched my mom’s face melt and listened to her scream until she couldn’t scream anymore. And my dad was abducted by a cult, flayed, and then served as lunch meat at some high school. My dad was made into  _ bologna _ , dude! You think I’ll see something I don’t like? I _ already have _ !” 

Travis’ eyes widened and the tanned skin that was visible paled. “Fucking  _ shit _ ! You brought in a psychopath!” he hissed to Sal. 

“I’ll show you psycho if you don’t open the goddamn door,” Sal threatened. 

A snarky response was certainly on the tip of his tongue, when suddenly another voice rang through from the inside of the building. One Johnson had no recognition of. 

“Is Sal back?”

Travis sputtered nonsense for a minute before replying, “He brought back a boy toy!”

Sal growled and kicked the door aggressively, heat rising to his face. “ _ Open the fucking door _ !” 

Travis temporarily disappeared from the slot in the door, giving Johnson the split second to turn around to face Sal and send him a grin and a quick wink. That stupid wink made Sal feel warm, an he wanted to strangle Johnson for it. 

“What are you talking about?” asked the second voice, and the brown eyes belonging to Travis were promptly replaced a second after by a striking violet pair. “Sal?”

“Robert, can you open the door?” Sal whined, everyone increasingly getting on his nerves. 

“Who’s that out there with you? Is he actually your boy—?”

“ _ He’s not my boy toy _ !” Sal yelled. “Look, I’ll explain when we get in, okay? He’s not a threat, he can barely walk without tripping over his enormous dumb feet.”

“My feet are elegant and graceful!” Johnson protested. 

“I thought Red could make some use of him.”

Robert raised an eyebrow at that. Then he looked away, and the pair standing outside in the cold were met with the sound of clinking metal on the other side of the door. “Okay, if you’re sure.”

Robert opened the door, finally allowing Sal and Johnson to escape from the freezing February weather. When they stumbled inside, Larry noticed a group of people were in the room, not just Travis and Robert. The room must have been a foyer of some sort, because a thin hall led down a corner and he couldn’t see past that, but other than that, the place was large and spacious. There was a couple old armchairs and sofas arranged in an unorganized circle, boxes of all sizes stacked at the foot of shelves that stretched all the way up to the ceiling, each one cramped full of various knick-knacks and other items, there were a couple long, flickery lights above them (the type you’d expect to find in an elementary school gymnasium), and even a shitty old ping-pong table. 

It looked more like a storage unit than a mafia layer to Sal.

Inside the room, there were seven people; two of which had been the ones bickering with Sal at the door, referred to by the latter as Robert and Travis. Robert had the sides of his head shaved and the long, spiky tufts that remained were dyed bright red—it went aesthetically well against his skin tone. He had cool piercings that Sal was openly jealous of, a similar taste in fashion, and a reliable partner when Sal practiced guitar. 

Travis, he was far,  _ far _ less fond of. He was extremely vocal about his negative opinion on homosexuality and was always looking to give Sal a hard time, because Sal was confident enough in his masculanity to be able to dress feminine if he so pleased. Travis was very hellbent on his beliefs, a fitting description considering he was always damning others to hell for their lack of faith in Christianity. Sal couldn’t care less what he chose to believe in as long as he wasn’t trying to force it on others. 

Sitting in an armchair using a computer was Todd, one of Sal’s best friends, and on one end of the ping-pong match, his boyfriend Neil. They were both openly gay individuals, something Sal could only ever hope to achieve, and far smarter than their years. In college, Todd had taken biotechnology and Neil had taken medicine, but were both kicked out when the administration found out about their sexualities. It never really came up in conversation, but Sal suspected that was part of the reason for them joined the Red-Eyed Demons. 

On the other end of the ping-pong table was Ashley, Sal’s other best friend. If Sal were any straighter than he was, he’d probably be in love with her; she was bold, brave, beautiful and had the biggest heart of anyone he’d ever met. He met Ash in high school along with Todd when he was dealing with a lot of difficult things in his life, and she’d always been there to pull him out of a slump. He suspected that given the opportunity, she always would be. 

Maple and Chug had claimed one of the sofas for themselves; they’d joined the gang a few years after Sal had, already married and with a kid on the way at the time. Said kid was their daughter, Soda, who Sal took every chance to spoil rotten. Apparently they’d joined because they were in crippling debt and were worried about having to raise a child on the streets, not to mention how much they disagreed with certain decisions the government had made, and wanted to take a stand. 

There were far more colleagues he could name, but none of which were in the room with them. It was just the seven already present, all of which had their sight trained intensely on their new guest, and all of which Sal knew were in possession of lethal weapons. 

“Who’s your friend, Sally?” Ash asked sweetly, quite obviously fondling a knife in her trouser pocket. 

“Relax. This is Johnson,” he introduced curtly. Larry grinned widely and waved but received no response. “Red’s still looking for Spanish workers and translators, right? This moron is fluent in Spanish.”

“This wouldn’t happen to be the same Larry Johnson you were just sent out to eliminate?” Todd questioned slowly, pushing his slipping glasses up the bridge of his nose and closing the lid of his laptop. 

Sal sighed. “Yep. But I promise you, he’ll be real helpful—Red needs Spanish workers, and bam, one’s served to us on a silver platter! Besides, he won’t go running his mouth off if he’s working for us, right?” His voice held a confident tone, but his mind was screaming at him that Johnson was about to be shot by seven different people. 

“He might still tell somebody,” Todd reasoned.

“He won’t.”

“I won’t,” Johnson piped in. 

“Why should we believe you?” Neil asked suspiciously. 

“Well first of all, he’s stupid enough to wander in here by his own accord. You think he’s smart enough to figure out how... ‘intense’... this line of business is?”

“Sally, with all due respect, I was asking him,” Neil said, referring to Johnson. Sal, taken aback, nodded slowly and moved out of Johnson’s way. He grinned idiotically, and Sal knew he was about to say something dumb before he even said it. 

“Hey! I’m Larry! Um, I don’t know any of your names, but it’s nice to meet all of you! Except you, dude, you don’t seem that great,” he added to Travis, who scowled. “Sal the pal here offered to get me a job working in your meth lab instead of shooting me in the head, so I think this is a better alternative.”

Ashley raised an eyebrow, looking Johnson up and down suspiciously. “Uh, Sal, can I have a word in the other room, please?”

Silently, Sal trudged after her down the hall so they could speak around the corner without anyone joining in. “Nobody kill him while I’m gone, otherwise I’m gonna be  _ pissed _ .”

He followed Ashley around the corner of the room, who crossed her arms and tapped her foot impatiently. 

“What?” Sal snapped. 

“Don’t get all defensive with me,” she asserted. “Why didn’t you kill Johnson?”

“Augh! I don’t know!” Sal groaned, frustratedly tugging on his hair. “He just—he got in my head! He was saying things, a-and making me doubt myself... I-I couldn’t do it, okay? And I don’t intend to, either.”

Ash hummed thoughtfully. “You’re pretty protective of some guy you just met, aren’t you?”

“Don’t even start with that shit. It’s not like that at all. Why does everybody think he’s my boy toy?”

“The fact that you haven’t killed him yet and how you’re all weird around him. You let him call you ‘Sal the pal’,” Ash reasoned. 

“I’m not weird around him and I don’t _ let _ him call me anything! He just does! We’re not even on first name basis! If you ask me,  _ you’re _ the ones who’re all being weird. I brought back a worker who could be of value to the Red-Eyed Demons, and here I am being accused of— _ ugh _ !” Sal stuck his tongue out at the thought of being with Johnson like  _ that _ . 

“You were  _ supposed  _ to  _ kill  _ him! I’m just worried that you’re giving Red more credit as an understanding guy than he’s worth! Remember the time he dangled you by your ankles from the balcony because you lost track of his mistress?”

“He located her in Europe a year later, that’s water under the bridge.”

“ _ Sal _ .”

“Okay, okay, I get what you mean. But I know the risks, Ash. Plus, the guy’s already here. It’d be a bit rude if I went up to him and said ‘hey dude, sorry, but this was actually a mistake and now I’ve got to fuckin’ murk you.’”

Ashley laughed at Sal’s comment. “I hope you know what you’re doing.”

“I never know what I’m doing. It seems to have worked out okay so far,” Sal shrugged. Ash rolled her eyes and affectionately punched Sal’s shoulder as she moved past him. 

“Come on. Let’s go make sure they haven’t killed Johnson yet.”

Luckily, they hadn’t killed Johnson, but the look on his face when Sal and Ash reentered the room made it look like he wished they had. 

“Look, I’m not trying to be rude when I tell you that my sexuality really isn’t your business, I’ve never met Sal until today, I’ve never hooked up with him, and I don’t know what size his dick is. Can we please stop talking about it?”

“I swear to fucking god that I’m going to murder you all,” Sal whispered.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey lads i updated blease be proud of me   
> i really appreciate comments and kudos, thank you lot so much for reading!! <3


	3. Hushed Voices

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the bois meet with Red

Hours passed.

Ashley and Neil finished their ping-pong match (Neil won and Ash blamed it on her near-sightedness and ultimately refused to accept the loss), Chug and Maple left to go and relieve their babysitter, Todd eventually either finished or got tired of whatever he was doing on his computer, so he and his boyfriend retreated to their apartment, Robert lived in a small room in the workhouse so he left to sleep there, Travis was working overnight so he had to stay, but preferred not to associate with his co-workers any longer than he had to, and wandered away.

This left Ash, Sal and Larry alone.

Larry had taken up Ash’s challenge to a ping-pong match so she could prove that she could win against someone while Sal watched them from the sofa, trying not to doze off. If the soft clacking of the ball against their pads didn’t keep him conscious, their banter certainly would.

“Hah! Take that, Johnson!”

“Oh yeah? Well take _this_ , Ashley whatever your last name is!”

“What do you think it is?”

“Hmm... Smith.”

“Ashley Smith?”

“I don’t know, pretty common name, figured it could be a possibility.”

“Well my last name is pretty common, so you’ve got that going for you. It’s not Smith, though.”

“Uh, Jones?”

“Nope.”

“Miller.”

“No.”

“Wilson?”

“Uh-uh.”

“It’s not Johnson, is it?”

“Why would you guess your own last name? Are you trying to propose to me? I think we’re moving a bit fast in this relationship, dude.”

“You’re right, I should take you out for dinner, first,” he joked. “But I mean, Johnson’s pretty common, isn’t it?”

“That’s fair. It’s Campbell.”

“Ashley Campbell! I’m Larry Johnson.”

“I know?”

“Just wanted to remind you because names are hard to remember. You can call me Larry, by the way.”

“Okay, _Larry_. Prepare to have your ass kicked at ping-pong _again_!”

Sal lounged on the couch, lost in thought. He wondered if the goofy, innocent man playing ping-pong with his best friend would be allowed to stay alive. He wondered how Red would react to him having failed to assassinate him. He’d hesitated before but his target had always been killed. This was the first time one had ever come back. He wondered if in the case that he was, if he’d see Johnson often. He wondered if he’d be treated well. Sal knew it shouldn’t matter to him, but Johnson was just so... _something_. He felt like Johnson deserved to be happy. He didn’t know what possessed him to feel that way, but—

“—sher?”

Sal looked up, realizing he’d been falling asleep.

“Wha...? What, sorry, what is it?”

Johnson grinned; the little wrinkles beside his eyes told Sal that he smiled often. “I just asked if you wanted to play. Ash says you’re not very good so I need a partner who I can match up to.”

Sal shot a pretend glare at Ash, who shrugged with a giggle.

“Come on, you never play! And I have to go now, anyway, so someone needs to babysit Larry.”

“I don’t need a babysitter—!”

“No thanks,” Sal sighed and stretched his arms as he relaxed back into the cushions. “You two have fun.”

“I just said I was leaving, dude.”

“Oh, right, yeah,” he mumbled and rubbed his eye through his mask using his fingers. “Sorry, I’m tired.”

“Get some sleep, then, okay?” Ash encouraged, and mussed up Sal’s hair. “See you later, guys!” With that, Ashley grabbed her bag, slung it over her shoulder and was gone, leaving the two men alone.

Johnson, having no one else to bother, flopped on the sofa next to Sal. “What are we doing now?” he asked.

“Being quiet,” Sal answered without opening his eyes. He was too tired to keep them open, but awake enough to know that he had to at least try and stay conscious. Red could send for him at any second, and he had to be ready. What was he going to say? What was _Red_ going to say?

Johnson hummed disapprovingly, obviously not on board with that plan, much to Sal’s chagrin. “Can I ask you something?”

“If you must.”

“What’s the mask for? I assumed it was for hiding your identity, but nobody else was wearing one. And you didn’t take it off when we got here.” It was an honest question, one Sal knew was coming eventually, but like all things seemingly were with Johnson, phrased differently.

“Not a mask,” Sal replied blearily, “it’s a prosthetic.”

That answer hung in the air for a moment as gears turned in Johnson’s mind.

“A prosthetic _face_?” he repeated after a moment. “So, wait, do you have like, no face underneath that, then?”

He leaned closer to Sal to look at his prosthetic more carefully, so Sal placed his small hand on Larry’s cheek and pushed him away.

“It doesn’t matter. Point is I won’t be taking it off, so get used to it.”

Johnson nodded, and the pair lapsed into silence.

“Do you have any siblings?” Johnson asked suddenly.

Sal opened his eyes to shoot a glare at him, but Johnson was staring out into space. Sal sighed and answered, “No.”

“Me neither. We had boring childhoods, didn’t we?” Sal shrugged, too exhausted to care about answering.

“I wouldn’t say boring. It’s hard not to be the centre of attention with a plastic face.”

“...Oh. Sorry.” He waved Johnson off, completely apathetic to the question. It was just a fact he had to deal with. Lots of kids were bullied for lots of different reasons.

“I was made fun of in school, too. For my nose. And for smoking weed. And because my mom was a janitor.”

There, see? Lots of different reasons. “That sucks.”

“It’s okay. Maybe we didn’t have boring childhoods. I was mostly referring to our home lives because we had no one to play with, or whatever. Well, I mean, my mom messed around with me sometimes when she wasn’t busy. My mom’s awesome, did you know that? She’s really great.”

Sal smiled beneath his mask. Larry gushing about his mom was really sweet. He wished he could do the same.

“What about your mom?”

Ah, and there it was. The million dollar question. Johnson couldn’t mind his own business, could he? Sal didn’t like to talk about his mother... it brought back bad memories. He didn’t like having to admit to anyone that she wasn’t around anymore. Himself included.

“I, um... oh yeah. She’s cool.”

There was no way Johnson couldn’t have noticed his hesitant answer, but didn’t pry.

“Do you listen to any music?”

“Uh, sometimes, I guess.”

“What about metal?”

“Not really.”

“Oh, that’s gotta change,” Johnson decided and jumped up. “Do you have a music player? You need to check out this song. It’s by a band I really like called Sanity’s Fall—it’s actually my favourite band, and it’s what the letters on my shirt stand for!” He unzipped his hoodie revealing a bold SF in the middle of a circle surrounding them and the F became an arrow pointing downwards.

“No,” Sal said and moved his hand to cover the pocket of his trousers where he was keeping his MP3. Johnson noticed the action, however, and narrowed his eyes.

“You absolutely do. C’mon, lemme see!”

“You’re crazy. I haven’t got shit.”

“No, but you’re _full_ of shit! Give it to me!” Johnson grinned and lunged for the pocket Sal was clearly protecting. He attempted to grab the device from where it was being concealed, and Sal quickly moved out of the way and kicked Larry off the couch. Before they had the chance to get in an all-out tackle war, a voice called them from around the corner.

“Hey, Sally, Red’s lookin’ for ya.”

Sal and Johnson whipped around to look for the source of the voice, leading their gazes to where another of Sal’s co-workers—David—was standing.

“Oh, thanks David,” Sal said and hopped off the sofa. “He waiting in his office?”

“Yep. Who’s this? New member?” he asked, pointing to the tall brunet, who stood up, straightened himself out and smiled confidently.

“We’ll see,” Sal answered before Johnson could. “Come on, Johnson.”

He obeyed, jogging up to walk side by side with Sal and offered a friendly wave to David. “Larry.”

“What?” Sal asked, giving him a side-glance. “I’d rather you call me Larry,” he said. Sal rolled his eyes and said nothing of it, instead opted to just lead Jo— _Larry_ , to the man who would decide their fates. They walked through long corridors and down a flight of stairs where they passed other members of the Red-Eyed Demons, some of whom Sal said hello to, others who gave them looks and some who ignored them completely. After a couple minutes of walking, they stood in front of a large office door. Sal’s fist hovered in front of it for a moment; he looked to Larry, who gave him a reassuring smile, so he swallowed and knocked quickly.

“Sal? Is that you?” asked a voice from inside. It was deep, husky, spine-tingling and familiar.

“Yes sir,” he answered nervously. “Can I come in?”

“Yes, come in, come in.”

“You wait here for a minute,” Sal whispered to Larry, before turning the doorknob and entering, but didn’t close the door all the way so Larry could listen in for his cue. “Hey Red.”

Red was a tall, thin man who Sal had never seen not wearing a sharp black suit. A stereotypical mafia boss, but without the enormous cigar. He was pale, middle-aged with wrinkles and bags under his cold, calculating, dark brown eyes. Nobody knew if Red was his first or last name, or if it was his real name at all. Nobody knew anything about him, really, and nobody was stupid enough to ask. People only knew what red allowed them to know, and nothing more.

“Take a seat, my boy.” Sal sat down in the chair across from Red and fidgeted anxiously as his boss stared at him wordlessly. “I know about Johnson.”

Sal felt the blood drain from his face. “S-sir, I—”

Red held his hand up to quiet Sal, who recognized the gesture and instantly fell silent. “I’m not mad.”

“...You aren’t?”

“No. I trust your judgement, there must have been a reason you kept him alive, correct?”

“Y... yeah, yeah, there was—there _is_. I know you were looking for more Spanish translators to work for cheap, and I found out that Johnson speaks Spanish fluently. I figured he could be helpful.”

Red nodded slowly. “It is true that we need Spanish workers... but there is something else, isn’t there?”

Sal felt his heart quicken. “Ex...cuse me?”

“You didn’t want to kill Johnson,” Red stated, leaning forward in his chair. “I can see it in your eyes.” With a nasty chuckle, he added, “Sorry, _eye_.”

“I-it’s not that, I-I just—”

“Do you know why this organization functions?” Red asked. “Because our members do their jobs. If everyone started slacking on their parts, we would fall to pieces. This is not the first time you have failed to bring a target down, yet every time I have let you off with a warning because you are a valuable worker to me. But that cannot suffice any longer. Do you understand me, Sal?”

Sal tried to swallow, but his throat was dry. He nodded. “Yes sir.”

“You can keep your _pet_ , but you _will_ compensate for this failure.”

Sal nodded again. “Of course, sir.”

Red stared past the eye holes in Sal’s prosthetic, leering right into his soul; it made the latter feel cold. Then Red leaned back in his chair.

“Bring him in. I know he’s out there.”

Sal nodded silently and stood up, eager to exit the room as quickly as he could. Nobody else could stand being in the same room as Red for long. He just had that toxic, poisonous energy about him, one that put people constantly on edge, one that could probably drive someone insane if they withstood it for too long. A dangerous energy.

Outside Red’s office, Larry was leaning against the wall with his eyes shut and his brows furrowed, tapping his hands against his thighs rhythmically and mouthing lyrics to a song enthusiastically; Sal wondered if it was the same song Larry had tried to introduce to him earlier on the couch, and if the guy was aware of how much like an idiot he looked. He was completely unaware and uncaring of the fate that laid before him, and completely oblivious to the toxicity that lurked next door. 

“What are you doing?” Sal barked, causing Larry to jump and breaking his silent one-man-band session. He truly didn’t mean to sound so harsh, but Red infected him as it did everyone. Just being in his vicinity made Sal snappish, talking to him made him twitchy and anxious. A reminder that there was this big presence hauntingly looming over him and all his friends at all times, that everything he did and said made its way back to him, that he called all the shots... and when you thought about it that way, Sal Fisher really had no freedom.

“Whoa, you scared me,” Larry exhaled with a grin. “Little warning next time, dude!”

Sal, who had very little patience for his antics right now, did not humour the taller man. “Just get in there. He’s waiting for you.”

Larry seemed to be put off by Sal’s change in attitude and gave him a confused look, but shuffled into Red’s office without any questions asked, nonetheless, and shut the door behind him. Sal crossed his arms and let himself fall back against the wall with a heavy sigh, his head hung and staring at his sneakers. It almost seemed silly to him, wearing sneakers to perform such a gruesome act, that hours prior, he thought he could do.

He shook away the thought, unwilling to have this conversation with himself at the moment, and focused on straining his ears to listen in on whatever Larry and Red were discussing in that godforsaken office.

 _Mumble mumble,_ “...requires doing...” _mumble,_ “...you might not be comfortable with...” _something unintelligible, mumble mumble mumble,_ “...necessary...” _more muttering,_ “...the economy and its...” _blah blah blah,_ “...low income...” _why can’t they talk louder?_ “...do you understand?”

Larry, who Sal thought he could count on to speak louder, seemed to be quieting his voice to pretty much a whisper, infuriating Sal. Perhaps that was how Red was affecting him specifically, though.

“What happens...” _mumble mumble,_ _something phrased like a question?_

 _Red laughing_ —never a good sign— _more mumbling,_ “...did Sal...” _mumbling..._

‘Did Sal’? ‘Did Sal’ _what_?!

 _Mumbling, the infamous ‘I don’t know’ sound, something murmured,_ “...exaggerating?”

How hard he had to listen in for bits and pieces was extremely frustrating, and Sal was tempted to just throw up his hands in defeat and stalk back upstairs to the couches where he could pass out and wait for Larry to return. But something told him to stay and wait. So he did.

 _Mumble mumble mumble,_ “...’s like that sometimes...” _mumble mumble,_ “...you’ve noticed...” _blah blah, speak up, tools,_ “...but we need...” _muttering, a brief pause,_ “...do you think?”

There was silence on the other side of the door, and if he wasn’t trying so hard to be quiet so he could eavesdrop, Sal might have wanted to punch something. If he knew those two were going to talk so inaudibly, he would have considered bugging Larry.

 _Mumble mumble,_ “...I know is...” _blah blah blah,_ “...to help...” _something, mumble._

“Interesting...” _mumble mumble mumble,_ “...to discuss your...” _something that may have been ‘paycheck’?_ “...good to go.”

They were rambling on and on, and Sal was fading. He was trying really hard to stay conscious, but he knew the moment he slumped down to sit on the ground, it was a lost cause.

The next thing he knew, the silence was waking him up, sunlight was spilling in through the murky windows of the foyer, and he was lying on the couch with a moth-eaten blanket haphazardly thrown over his body. Larry was across from him on one of the other couches with his hair splayed all over the place and drooling slightly on the sofa cushions. He looked extra tired with the dark bags hanging under his eyes, and perhaps it was the minimal hours of sleep Sal had gotten, but he didn’t immediately hate himself for admitting Larry looked kind of cute. Sal groaned and let his head drop back into the pillow, his neck sore from the awkward angle at which he slept. Considering Larry was still alive, Sal assumed that meant—

“Huh. Welcome to the mafia, then, Larry Johnson,” he said softly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> howdy lads sorry that it took so long, i'm finding it difficult to write much at a time for this story, but i intend to keep going :) i have ideas as to where i'm going to go with it, so look forward to that :p  
> comments and kudos make me really happy, thank you so much to everyone who leaves them i owe you my life


	4. Bandaged

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sal's history with Red

“Mommy, listen to the doggy! Can you hear it, Mommy?” the little toddler with eccentric blue hair, small even for his age, and ever eager to learn, asked excitedly. He loved dogs—they were bubbly and fun to play with, they had that in common. He liked petting them with his tiny hands and he was always careful not to let his sweaty palms get tangled in the fur of the animal so as not to hurt it. Sometimes he only used his fingers to pet dogs if he was worried he’d pull its hair. His teacher once described him as ‘like a puppy’, even, and Sal had never laughed so hard. Him, like a puppy—it was just so silly, he was a _boy_! “Can I go pet the doggy? Please, Mommy?”

Diane Fisher gave her son a warm, loving smile as she sat on the blanket, feeling the breeze through her long, blonde hair. She had packed peanut butter and strawberry jam sandwiches cut into triangles for the picnic, Sal’s favourite meal. She even brought him a juicebox because of how much he liked them, even though they were so unhealthy.

“Let’s wait until Daddy gets here, okay, sweetie?” she replied, digging through the basket to take out a sandwich. “Come and eat your lunch, first, then we can go see the doggy together.” Diane pulled the boy into her lap and run her slender, gentle fingers through her son’s electric blue hair that he got from his father. Sal and Henry Fisher shared many things beside that—eye colour, jokiness, the curve of their nose, their comically large ears (Sal liked his big ears, though, he said they reminded him of Dumbo), but if his small stature told them anything, he’d inherited his mother’s shortness. He had Diane’s compassion and love for animals, always going on about wanting a kitty or a puppy, so often that his parents had been talking in secret about getting him a pet.

“What if it’s not there when we go see it?” Sal asked worriedly. “When will Daddy get here?”

“He’ll be here soon,” Diane assured.

Sal pouted, theatrically sticking his bottom lip out, crossing his pudgy little arms and letting out a small ‘hmph!’ “I wanna see the doggy!” he whined.

Diane only smiled—Sal was generally a very polite, respectful and well-behaved boy, so whenever he had little episodes like this, she only found it humorous. “Oh, none of that, we’ll see the doggy, Sally. But we don’t want Daddy to think we’ve just disappeared, do we?”

This seemed to register with Sal, as Diane watched the gears turn in his young mind. Then he shook his head.

“No, that would be scary. I would be scared if you and Daddy disappeared.”

“We’re not going anywhere, love,” she whispered and kissed the top of his head. He giggled in response before bouncing up and down in his mother’s arms.

“Ooh! Can I go see the doggy and you wait for Daddy? He won’t think we disappeared, then!”

Diane sat up straighter so she could see just how far Sal would be going on his own. The dog was on the other side of the field and barking at something—it wasn’t anywhere she couldn’t see, and every parent needs to take steps to let their children experience independence. She mulled over the thought and looked down to meet her son’s eyes, that were wide with anticipation. How could she say no to those eyes?

She smiled. “Alright. You can go pet the doggy, but come right back, okay? Don’t wander off and don’t talk to anyone you don’t know.”

Sal’s grin was blinding and his eyes lit up. “Yay! Thank you, Mommy!” he cried and jumped up from Diane’s lap to make a beeline towards the dog. She watched with amusement as he toddled away, never less excited to pet a dog than the last time, and hoped that childlike wonder would stay with him for as long as he lived.

Meanwhile, Sal hadn’t noticed the way that dog was staring at him. It had ugly dark grey fur and brown eyes that gleamed dangerously yellow in the light of the setting sun. Sharp teeth that hid behind its long snout. The dog had stopped barking at the sky when it noticed Sal approaching. A living red flag—but how was a three-year-old with no concept of danger supposed to know that? Every other dog he’d ever pet had been playful and tame, the extent of which being having his feet nipped at when he ran around them. Why would this one be any different?

“Hi, doggy!” Sal grinned happily. “Where’s your owner? Are you a good b—”

The dog snarled and suddenly Sal was on the ground, screaming as it latched its monstrous teeth onto the young boy’s face and sunk deep into the flesh. Skin was torn off of Sal’s skull as the creature mercilessly bit and scratched and growled. He tried to push the dog off of him, but his arms only ended up bleeding profusely in his attempts when claws made contact with baby soft skin.

The boy’s fearful cries were instantly heard by Diane, whose gaze shot up from the nail polish she’d been mindlessly picking at to look in the direction of the scene every parent dreaded most—her child in trouble. She wasted no time scrambling up from the blanket and darting towards where the dog appeared to be eating Sal’s face. Diane screamed, gaining the attention of the monster; blood dripped from its mouth and into a puddle surrounding the toddler’s head.

“ _SAL!_ ”

When the dog attacked Diane, it didn’t go for her face.

When Henry Fisher arrived ten minutes later, his wife and son were not waiting for him on the picnic blanket where they said they’d be. The checkered blanket was messily folded over and the basket was tipped over on its side with its contents spilling out onto the grass, like they’d had to leave in a hurry. It didn’t take him long to notice the gruesome state his family had been left in. His little boy’s arms scratched to bits and his face completely mauled, but the damage hidden underneath the horrifying amount of blood. The love of his life’s mouth hanging open, eyes wide in fear, and throat ripped out, lying dead in a puddle of both her and their son’s blood.

Henry didn’t remember calling the paramedics, he just knew that they showed up on account of his call. He didn’t remember what he said or how many tries it took to form a coherent sentence. It was all a blur; he hazily recalled people ushering him away from where they were all but throwing Sal onto a stretcher and trying to clean whatever was left of his face, and pulling a sheet over Diane’s body. He recalled screaming himself hoarse on the way to the hospital, not yet able to process his wife was dead, screaming for his son to wake up, he couldn’t lose his boy.

He wasn’t allowed to accompany Sal and the doctors into the operating room. He recalled being unable to stop yelling, _demanding_ information about his family, nurses pleading with him to _calm down, you’re disturbing the other patients_ , he kept yelling, then he was sedated.

When Henry woke up on a hospital bed several hours later, the first thing he did was throw his legs around the side of the bed so he could make sure his family was okay, and collapsing. The crash alerted nurses of his consciousness, who helped him up. They told him they could bring him to see Sal if he would remain quiet, to which he hastily agreed. They whispered to him on the way down the long, white corridors the condition Sal was in, that _it’s a miracle he survived_ , and how unrecognizable he was now in comparison to mere hours ago.

His head was completely wrapped in bandages to let the open wounds heal, and both of his forearms had needed serious stitching. He was on anesthesia to keep him out during the painful process of reassembling his face, so he would wake up wondering where he was, why he was waking up somewhere other than in his bedroom, where Mommy and Daddy were, what brought him here in the first place, and why he wasn’t allowed to take the bandages off.

There were lots of very nice nurses who explained very kindly, “Your face has a really bad boo-boo, Sal. Whenever you scrape your knee, you put a bandaid on it, right?” It hurt to speak, so he nodded. It hurt to nod, so he opted not to do it again. “That’s because if you don’t, more blood can escape the boo-boo, and germs can get in. So think of the bandages as a really big bandaid that protects your face from germs, and for now, will keep the blood from getting out.”

Daddy was almost always there with him, to comfort him, tell him bedtime stories and read to him, but Mommy never was. Where was Mommy? Whenever he asked, Henry would look away with tears in his eyes and change the subject; Sal was too young to notice this obvious display of avoidance, so he never got the question answered by someone else. He figured it out for himself.

He had a goldfish a few months ago, its name was Goldie. But one day, Goldie wasn’t swimming—he was staring up at the ceiling with the eye on the side of its head as he floated at the top of the water. Diane had explained that Goldie was taking a really long nap, and was never going to wake up. They buried the fish in the backyard together, and Sal cried into his mother’s shoulder. But he couldn’t do that anymore—because now Mommy was taking a really long nap, and she wasn’t coming back. He didn’t quite understand it, but Sal hoped she was having good dreams.

When he wasn’t thinking about Diane, Sal was learning to deal with other things. The stitches in his face came undone if he talked too much or tried to eat a lot in one go, so he had to limit the amount he spoke and was fed through plastic tubes. The nurses explained that instead of food going through his mouth into his tummy, it was going through the tube and into his body. After a few weeks, the stitches healed.

He couldn’t see out of his right eye, anymore. No matter what he did, moving the bandages out of the way or rubbing at it, he could only see from his left. The nurses told him a few days after his discovery that he was half blind, he had lost his right eye entirely. Sal thought back to the book of mythical creatures he’d read in school once, specifically about the beast that was born with only one eye—cyclops.

The nurses changed his bandages everyday, and that was the part of the day Sal grew to hate most. It was terrible—no matter how gentle the nurses were, whenever the bandages were unwrapped only to be fastened back on, it prompted horrible aching, burning pain to surge through his body. He cherished the few seconds that his face was free to the cool hospital air each day; the bandages were itchy and hot, and with every passing second, he wanted them off more.

Henry was there to try and distract him from his discomfort, but nothing could tear his mind fully away from his body’s agony. He constantly erupted into splitting headaches, ones that would drag crying and howling from the boy’s mouth. The bandages on his arms were taken off before the ones on his face, and the fresh claw wounds underneath his sleeves frightened and disturbed Sal, so he stopped wearing short-sleeved shirts. He began to wonder how much worse his face was.

Eventually, they said that the Fishers were okay to go home, but they gave Henry a daily schedule for dealing with Sal’s new medical needs. Clean his face when in the process of changing the bandages, which must be done every day at the same time until they run out; before they do, come back, and by then, they’ll be able to give him something to keep the raw skin of Sal’s face sanitized. They were released from the hospital with a roll of bandage waiting to be used, bottles of medication to help with Sal’s headaches and pains, medication to help him sleep and medication to calm him down, because over the course of their stay, Sal had become less of the happy, curious little boy he used to be, and more anxious, twitchy, scared, and constantly crying.

He cried if he met a new nurse, he cried if Henry was in the bathroom for too long, he cried when he hurt, and he hurt so, so often. He cried if he was hungry, if a show he wanted to watch wasn’t on, if he lost the page in a book he was reading, when he missed his friends, when he missed Diane, when he missed when _everything wasn’t always hurting._

Despite his dad and all the nurses cautioning him _never to take the bandages off on his own_ , Sal’s curiosity got the better of him when he was lying in bed one night, waiting for his sleeping medication to kick in. He threw off his comforter, restless and desperate to get the stuff off of him; he padded into the bathroom in bare feet and pyjamas, turned on the light, pulled the step stool over to the counter and looked at his reflection—bandages covering his face, blue hair poking out in clumps in between some, and one blue eye staring back at him. Sal knew what he was doing after having watched his father and the nurses do it time and time again. Still, weeks after the accident, he had never actually _seen_ his face.

And he was not prepared to.

Disgusting, sickening, appalling, frightening and _fucked_ are words Sal would use to describe his face later on. Furious red and pink scars dipped in and out of his flesh, pieces of skin had been entirely ripped away, the ghost of where stitches had been used to hold his flesh together were still visible, the tip of his nose had been mauled off, the empty socket where his right eye had once been had scars running right through it, and—

He’d never screamed so loud.

When the dog attacked him, he’d sobbing and yelling, but when he saw his mangled reflection for the very first time, Sal _screeched_ , terrified of his own face. He had nightmares for months after that, the image of _himself_ haunting him while he slept.

Of course it had woken up Henry, who was up the rest of the night trying to console the young boy. Sal refused to go anywhere near mirrors, he wouldn’t use the bathroom until Henry covered the mirror over with a garbage bag, and he barely left his room anymore.

When the bandages finally ran out, they took one last trip up to the hospital where Sal was given the item that would shape his image for the rest of his life. A blank, white, expressionless mask with brown buckles and a darker patch around the right eye. The doctor handed it to him and told him to try it on—it fit perfectly, as he knew it would, because they took his measurements the last time he visited. It was to keep his face protected, they said; the pink patch over the right eye was to keep that part extra sanitized, because the amount of bacteria that could get into an open socket was a very high risk. To fix it, a glass eye accompanied by the plastic mask.

It was a year later that Sal finally started going back to school, now almost five years old. He hadn’t missed a lot, luckily, as he was an avid learner and there wasn’t much else to do when his dad was at work and he had nothing to do at home by himself but study. It took him aback when people stared, screamed or cried at the sight of him. After all, the real horror was _underneath_ the mask.

As he grew older, the intensity of the remarks about his appearance became more offensive, more hurtful. It used to just be looks of pity, disturbance, whispers and pointed fingers in the corridors, a couple ‘ _freak!_ ’ comments here or there, maybe the occasional ‘ _what a creepy mask!_ ’, but it evolved into personal, invasive questions, requests to show his face, threats to steal his mask...

Sal grew up alone. There was nobody who could come close to understanding what it was like to grow up the way he did. After his mom died, Henry turned to drinking to console him, and became a pretty absent parent. They didn’t talk very much as Sal grew older—his dad didn’t know what his son’s everyday life was like, or really much else about him at all. Through elementary, middle and high school, Sal made a total of three friends. Ashley Campbell, Todd Morrison and a kid Todd knew called Neil, who became Sal’s friend by default. But he didn’t actually _meet_ them in school.

One evening in his freshman year, Sal was walking home after a particularly bad onslaught of insults thrown at him. Usually he could take it, but like he always seemed to turn to, he just wanted to cry. ‘Sally Face’ is what they were calling him, now. It wasn’t even that creative, it was just his name and the word ‘face’, but something about it stung. Maybe because it was being used to reduce his entire being down to an accident that occurred when he was _three_ , something he couldn’t control. He didn’t like crying with the prosthetic on because it got all sticky and gross inside, but he couldn’t stop a few tears from rolling down his mangled cheeks into the chin of the mask, when suddenly he heard a deep bark abruptly jerk him from his self-pity.

It was a large brown pitbull, filthy with dirt and covered in scratches standing in the alleyway across the street from him. Shaken by this occurrence, Sal chose to keep walking but held the dog’s stare. When he rounded the corner, a German shepherd was sniffing in his direction, and when their eyes met, it froze.

At this point in time, Sal was on the verge of a breakdown, and a third dog approached him from the other side of the road didn’t help his case. It was then that he noticed how dark it was due to the lateness in the year, and nobody else was around but him. The flickery street lights would be the last thing he ever saw, apparently. He didn’t want to move, because he knew those animals were much faster than him. If he ran, they’d catch him. Maybe if he just stayed perfectly still, they’d leave him alone.

“Quit your sobbing, kid. Are you a man or a little girl?” suddenly asked a voice from the shadows. Sal whipped around so fast it might have broken his neck, only aware now that he was audibly crying, to see a tall silhouette engulfed in darkness down the street from him.

“I-is this—a-are y-you mugging me?” Sal asked shakily. “B-because I don’t have any m-money. A-and doing t-this in the middle of the s-street...? Ballsy move, asshole.” He knew trying to intimidate a full grown man who possibly intended to rob or kill him was a long shot coming from a 5’2” fourteen-year-old with a cracking voice and bright blue pigtails, but hey, worth a shot. Luckily, his comment didn’t get _him_ shot immediately—in fact, it prompted low chuckling from the man who was approaching. The man Sal recognized as a familiar face that appeared on the news.

“Oh s- _shit_ ,” he breathed upon learning the identity of the man.

“Calm down. I have no intention to harm you,” Red said, and removed his hand from his pocket. Sal flinched, expecting a gun or a knife, but it held nothing. He brought his hand up to his mouth and whistled, to which the dogs immediately responded to by trotting over to him and away from Sal, who might have sobbed in relief. “Sal Fisher, right?”

“H-how do you know me?”

Red slowly tapped his temple. _The mask._

“W-well, w-what do you want?” Sal demanded, trying to sound brave.

“To deliver a formal apology,” he replied in a cold, silky voice. “That accident that befell you as a child occurred on my hands. That dog was there to guard perimeters of an old warehouse of mine, but I was unaware people came anywhere near that clearing. For the pain you’ve endured, I am personally sorry.”

Sal, who couldn’t believe what he was hearing, blanched. A mafia boss _apologizing_ to him? And what’s more, the same mafia boss that apparently _ruined his life_ apologizing to him?

“You’ve been on our no-hit list since we learned the identity of the kid who was mauled by one of my guard dogs,” Red continued. “Don’t worry, we had that fucker ripped to shreds by the other mutts pretty soon after. It was only supposed to intimidate people into leaving.”

Sal nodded. It was nice, he supposed, to get some sort of closure? Even though it was a completely unexpected twist, maybe it was better than nothing? But what else was he supposed to say? Fortunately he didn’t have to, as Red proceeded.

“I also wanted to ask you something, Sal Fisher.”

“Um... w-what?”

“Why do you never stand up for yourself?”

“Ex...cuse me?”

“We’ve been watching you for a while, as I’m sure I’ve made pretty obvious at this point, but I find it interesting that you were willing to take a stab at _me_ , yet there’s never a trace of resistance when the other kids at school call you a freak, or a faggot, or a _mistake_ ,” the man noted, stepping closer to the high schooler. “Why is that?”

Sal didn’t reply, in lieu of staring incredulously at the tall man. Red seemed to realize that he wasn’t going to get an answer, so with a hum, he turned the other direction and over his shoulder, offered, “Maybe it’s about time you give them your say.” He walked down the street into the night, and vanished into the shadows, followed loyally by the large, frightening dogs, though none as frightening as he.

And they all knew it.

When Sal and Red crossed paths again the next day, the former this time around in much worse shape, Red smirked.

“I see you took my advice, then.”

Sal shrugged. His hair was messy, his mask was dirty and scuffed, there were new tears in his jeans and his fists were bloody and bruised. Any passerby could tell he had gotten into a fight.

“Did you win?”

Again, he shrugged. He wouldn’t say he won, but he definitely didn’t lose. He refused to accept his tormentors' words passively that day and the whole situation had spun out of control fast. There was yelling, swearing, threatening, but in the heat of it all, however, Sal threw the first punch. That much, he was certain. There were about six or seven people who were teasing him, four of which were girls, and Sal would never hit a girl, so he fought the three guys. All juniors. They were easily stronger than him, but what none of them—including Sal—knew was that hyped up on adrenaline and anger, he was scrappy, wirey, and he fought dirty, but he fought well. The only reason he didn’t get his ass properly kicked is because some of the seniors stepped in and separated the fight, sending Sal on his way while the juniors hurled slurs at his departing figure.

“Broke the one guy’s nose if the bleeding was any indication. Might’ve broken another’s finger. Third guy’s apparently got a concussion.”

Red let out a low whistle, and Sal would be lying if it didn’t feel good to impress a mafia boss. “You fought _three_ kids, huh? And you’re what, 5’0?”

“5’2.”

Red chuckled. “I knew you had it in you, Fisher. Tell you what, keep up the good work, and you’ll be hearing from me again.”

As Sal watched the tall man walking away, he had a goal in mind. He wanted Red’s attention, and he was determined to get it. If that meant getting in trouble at school, so be it; something about Red being proud of him gave him purpose unlike he’d had in a long time. For most of his life, his only intention was to survive and get by, but now he had something to work for. And hey, if a couple douchebags get their faces smashed in during the process, that was fine by him, too.

Did he know at the time letting his anger spiral out of control was unhealthy and dangerous? No.

Did he know that anger would get him kicked out of school? No way.

Did he know at the time that the only reason he wanted to impress Red was because he didn’t have a significant male role model in his life? Nope.

If he could go back and do it all over again, would he? Not a chance.

Sal made friends in the Red-Eyed Demons, and he’d never had those before. Friends who didn’t point and laugh at the way he wore his hair or painted his nails. Friends who didn’t pry about what lay beneath the prosthetic. Friends who _cared_.

Red took him in after he was expelled and Sal hadn’t talked to his dad since. In Sal’s eyes, Henry had all the opportunities in the world to get his act together and be a real father, but had chosen not to. Diane’s death was hard on Sal, too, but he pushed through. It was just Henry that was determined to live in the past, and if that was how he wanted to live, Sal wouldn’t be apart of it.

Everyone was scared of Red—Sal was scared of Red, but he still wanted to make him proud. And he was proud whenever Sal was successful on some task, so Sal kept succeeding and climbed high in the ranks of the gang. The problem now was that he still wanted to impress Red, but how was he supposed to do that—

“Hey, Mishter Fisher, uh, how do you shoot a grappling hook, again? I know you said we wouldn’t need it, but what if we do? What then, huh? You’ll be saying, ‘oh, I wish I’d listened to Larry and brought the grappling hook, oh, I’m so dumb’. Oh _shit_ —fuck, nevermind, there it goes!”

—when _Larry Johnson_ of all people, had just been assigned as his partner to carry out a major drug deal that the Red-Eyed Demons had been anticipating for months?


	5. Translation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The aforementioned drug deal goes down.

Sal tried to reason with Gibson—the old lady in charge of accounting and assigning jobs—to leave Larry behind and let him perform the deal on his own.

Their gang had been anticipating it for _months_ , and they’d already started making plans of what to do with the drugs, of which they would be getting a surplus of. According to Red, their dealers didn’t know they were being scammed, and the Red-Eyed Demons were getting more for less money, so they would have enough to keep for themselves. That made certain members _very_ excited, so if _Larry_ screwed it up, he and Sal would _both_ be strung up sideways.

Maybe Gibson didn’t understand the gravity of the situation, maybe she was still pissy about the time Sal shot her rabbit (it wasn’t _his_ fault, he was young and just learning how to shoot a gun; the rabbit had escaped from its cage, somehow made its way onto the range, snuck up on Sal, and ended up with a bullet in its brain), or maybe she just didn’t care about what he had to say.

“You’re goin’ with Lori, that’s that!” she had said in that horrible, nasally voice of hers.

“ _Larry_ , and you _have_ to reconsider!” Sal pleaded desperately. “He treats the whole thing like a joke and he has no sense of his own mortality! You know what he was doing earlier? Trying to teach himself how to use a grappling hook! Now we’re down a window!”

“ _You_ were the one who volunteered him for the job!” she reasoned, jabbing her bony finger into his chest. “If you don’t give him some responsibilities, Red’s gonna think you’re just trying to save his ass!”

 _I_ am _just trying to save his ass!_

Sal groaned angrily. “He can do something else! Why doesn’t he replace that window he broke? That’d be useful!”

“He. _Goes_ ,” Gibson hissed dangerously, her tone making it evident that there was no room for argument. Still, Sal argued, despite knowing it was a lost cause—he was just fighting so he could say he’d at least _tried_ to get her to change her mind.

And that was how he ended up sitting next to an overeager Larry in the back of a dimly-lit dirty truck that smelled like weed and socks. If the glare fixated to his face beneath his mask didn’t give away the foulness of his mood, the way he slouched over and rested his head on his hand certainly did. That, and snapping at Larry every five seconds when he said something more annoying than what he said last.

“What’s this?”

Sal glanced over. “That’s the plastic part of a used tampon. Why the hell would you pick that up?” he scoffed, smacking the object out of the taller man’s hand before leaning back and watching it roll away on the floor.

“Uh, because I didn’t know what it was?” Larry reasoned, disgustedly wiping his hand against the side of his leg.

“So you just pick shit up off the ground? What if you picked up an IED and got your arm blown off?”

“Well I wouldn’t pick up a _bomb_ , Salvestor, I’m not _that_ stupid.”

“How would you know it was a bomb? The point of IEDs is that you can never tell!”

“Wait, so _anything_ could be an IED?”

“I mean, within reason—”

“Scissors.”

“What?”

“Pants.”

"I—”

“A Nokia. Actually, the Nokia could probably survive a bomb explosion—”

“Fuckin’ quit it, would you?!”

Larry cackled and sat back, so the pair entered a lull of silence. With a sigh, the brunet started bouncing his leg. Sal glanced over and glowered.

“You seriously can’t help yourself, can you?”

“It’s not my fault! I’m bored!” Larry whined.

Sal groaned before turning away and unzipping his bag where he began to root through his things. Then, after a moment, pulled an item out and handed it over to Larry. “Here. Play with this and leave me alone.”

“A Gameboy?!” he exclaimed. “Oh _hell yeah_! Y’know, despite acting like a stone-cold jerk all the time, you must secretly be a nerd if you’ve got a soft spot for video games!” Larry revelled, happily taking the device from Sal’s outstretched hand, who wanted to immediately rescind his offer to let him play on it after that sentence.

“I _am_ a jerk. I thought I’d made that clear.”

“Yeah, so you say, but I see you, Salvador, I’m onto you,” Larry smirked. “Oh _damn_ , you beat all of the levels in _Legend of Zelda_?”

“I gave you the stupid game so you _wouldn’t_ talk to me!” Sal spat, ears red from Larry’s observation, who shrugged despite the hurt look he gave Sal and began messing around on the Gameboy. It almost made him want to apologize, but he had nothing to be sorry for. It was just a statement of fact.

They spent the last few hours of the ride not speaking. The only sounds that filled the back of the truck were the gravel beneath the bulky tires and the soft beeping from the Gameboy whenever Larry passed a level on _Super Mario_. It was an uneasy atmosphere, one far less calming than Sal anticipated, who passed the remainder of the journey thinking. Mostly about how the deal would go when they got there, whether or not Larry would be able to keep his trap shut, what the likelihood was of the gangly idiot getting them both shot, if he remembered to take his bagel bites out of the microwave, a documentary about ghosts that he watched a week ago, and whether or not it was wrong to want to see Larry naked.

Yeah, a pretty quick escalation between wanting to wring his neck and wanting to see him without clothes on, but Sal was a man of simple taste. Like any other person, he recognized attractiveness when he saw it, and he couldn’t deny that Larry was good-looking. The frigid air made his nose and cheeks flushed and rosy, and Sal wondered what _other_ circumstances could make him go red like that.

He’d never actually admit it to another living being, of course, and he would never actually act on those thoughts. They weren’t _necessary_ and they certainly weren’t called for; Sal saw pretty people all the time. He’d hooked up with several pretty people, too, some of whom just happened to be guys.

...all of whom just happened to be guys.

A particularly harsh bump on the road jolted Sal out of his thoughts and also caused him to bite his tongue. “I swear to god, those fucking idiots are blind,” he muttered angrily.

“I’m sure they’re doing their best,” Larry offered, prompting Sal to raise an eyebrow.

“I was talking to myself.”

“I’m just saying, maybe it wasn’t their fault. Maybe they hit a pothole or something. Everyone hits potholes, right? I’m sure even _you_ have, Mr. Perfect,” he teased, nudging Sal with his elbow.

“‘S never happened to _me_ ,” Sal defended.

“Yeah yeah, you can’t hit a pothole if you can’t drive.” Larry of course had meant it as a joke, but it didn’t make Sal laugh. The former noticed the blue-haired man’s lack of response and finally looked up from his game. “What?”

“Nothing.”

“Wait, you can’t actually drive?”

“I _said_ it’s nothing.” “Hey, it’s no big deal if you can’t. I didn’t get my license until I was at least eighteen—”

“Look, I’ll _never_ get a license, okay?! Peripheral vision is _kind of_ something necessary in order for someone to be able to drive, and _usually_ , having two goddamn eyes is a plus!” He wanted to take it back the instant he said it. What the fuck was wrong with him? Why was he sharing _shit_ with Larry? Sal chalked it up to frustration derived from the brunet’s obnoxious prying.

“You have _one eye_? That’s... that’s metal as _fuck_.”

“Um, thanks?” Not quite the reaction he was expecting, but—

“Lemme see, lemme see,” he said and leaned over to properly look through the holes in Sal’s prosthetic. More so what he was expecting.

“Get off!”

 

The night was bitingly cold and the sky was hidden by yellowish clouds. The echoes of steam shooting from pipes and the creaking of rusty metal rang through the air. It seemed like the kind of place teenagers would go to get stabbed.

A tall, burly pair of men were standing there waiting for them when Sal and Larry got out of the back of the truck. They were both wearing heavy jackets, one black and one navy with the hoods drawn up and thick goatees, neither of Caucasian descent; the man in navy was bald with a slash through his eyebrow, and Sal couldn’t help but think _damn, that is so goddamn cool_. The other had greasy black hair that was mostly concealed under the hood and greying facial hair. Both looked like they were capable of snapping the younger pair in half with little to no effort required.

The bald man signed something to his partner, who spoke on his behalf.

“¿Son ustedes los que representan a los Demonios de Ojos Rojos?”

Sal blanked. _Fuck. No one said anything about them not speaking English. Fuck me._ “Uhh, what?”

La Greaser signed to El Baldo one with a distasteful expression, who returned some gestures Sal couldn’t understand.

“¿Eres o no eres?” La Greaser asked. “Va a haber problemas si no lo eres.”

Before Sal could say anything else, though, Larry stepped forward.

“No, no, lo siento por él, no habla español. Sí, somos los que estás buscando,” he told them assuringly. Sal could definitely use some of that right about now.

“What did they say? What are you telling them?” he hissed, tugging on Larry’s sleeve anxiously, but the brunet was not given the opportunity to reply.

“¿Son solo ustedes dos?” La Greaser translated for the other.

“Solo somos nosotros, excepto el conductor,” Larry said with a friendly grin, one probably inappropriate for the situation.

The men perked up at that, and La Greaser walked over to the truck they’d arrived in. “Voy a echarle un vistazo.”

El Baldo stood firm where he was with his arms crossed, staring at Sal and Larry with sharp, calculating eyes.

“What is he doing? Larry!” the shorter man demanded, shaking Larry’s arm much harder.

“They just asked if we were alone, I told them it was just us and the driver. I think they’re going to go check the driver, that’s all,” he explained with a calm smile. Sal whipped around to watch the scene go down, and was slightly taken aback by the way the Spanish man knocked on the driver’s window; that kind of politeness wasn’t what he usually saw from people in this business, that’s all. Their middle-aged driver (whose name neither of them knew) opened the car door and stepped out before the man in black began patting him down. “Yep, see?”

Once it seemed that he was satisfied by his lack of findings on the driver, the man allowed him back into the car with a nod and made his way back over to Sal and Larry. He signed something to El Baldo, El Baldo returned the gesture.

“Bien. Veamos alguna identificación, entonces,” La Greaser said to Larry.

“They want identification to prove we’re with the Red-Eyed Demons,” the brunet translated. “You wouldn’t happen to have something like that, would you?”

Sal scoffed; “Of course I do, you idiot.” He pulled a card out of his pocket and handed it off to the bald man, who inspected it very closely. In reality, it couldn’t have been more than a few seconds, but those few seconds felt like a solid minute to Sal, who was put on edge by the skeptical way the man squinted at the small card as if he were expecting to find something incriminating. Then the card was being shoved back in his hand, and the man was speaking again.

“¿Tienes el dinero?”

“Money,” Larry said.

Sal quickly held up the briefcase in his hand that contained the $2,000 they had been entrusted with to spend on the drugs. The man took the case, inspected the money as intensely as he had Sal’s identification before snapping the locks shut and handing it off to La Greaser who tucked the briefcase under one arm and motioning for the pair to follow him.

“Las cosas están en la parte de atrás. Venga.”

The short walk from the front around to the garage gave Sal the opportunity to elbow Larry in the side with a hidden grin.

“Look at you, huh? This might not be such a trainwreck after all. It’s going well, right?”

Larry smiled nervously; “I mean, as well as a drug deal can go, yeah? Then again, I’ve only ever bought weed from losers behind my school, so I’m not certain how it’s supposed to be going.”

“He’s showing us where everything is kept, so that’s a good sign.”

The men led them to the back where other people of a similar fashion as El Baldo and La Greaser were lounging about around other storage units, and opened the garage door revealing multiple cardboard boxes stacked on top of one another. To be sure, Sal opened the flaps on the top, pleased when their promised drugs were inside. He turned around to face Larry, but he was engaged in conversation with El Baldo while La Greaser translated for them.

“¿Vives por aquí?” Larry asked.

“No. Vivo en Nuevo Laredo,” La Greaser responded on El Baldo’s behalf.

“Oh. ¿Es agradable allí?”

“No del todo, puede ser muy peligroso en las zonas de Narco. La gente siempre tiene armas.”

“Joder, eso suena horrible! ¿Por qué no te vas?”

“Mi familia vive allí.”

“¡Deberían irse también, entonces!”

“No tenemos el dinero para irnos, por el momento. Aunque mi cónyuge y yo estamos ahorrando. ¿Dónde crees que sería un mejor lugar para vivir, Canadá o Australia?”

“Nunca he estado en ninguno de los dos, pero personalmente aposté por Canadá. Sí, al parecer hace frío como el infierno allí, pero preferiría ser más frío que ser mordido por un escorpión de diez pies de largo y muerto.”

“¿Qué dijiste tu nombre era otra vez, niño?”

“Larry Johnson, señor. ¿Tú?”

“Me gusta tu ambiente, Johnson. ¿Cómo nunca te he visto antes? ¿Acabas de empezar, o algo?”

“Sí, hace unos días. ¿Tú?”

“Oh, he estado trabajando en este campo desde siempre. Mi papá lo hizo, así que he estado prácticamente inscrito desde que era un niño pequeño.”

“Eso es bastante triste, sin embargo, que no pudiste elegir lo que querías hacer.”

“Sí, realmente lo hace, ¿no? Yo quería ser panadero. Mi abuela solía hacer los mejores pasteles, y ella compartió todas sus recetas conmigo antes de morir.”

“Usted será el mejor panadero de Canadá, Sr. Ramírez.”

“Gracias, Johnson. Por cierto, tu amigo allí, campanilla, no es muy útil, ¿verdad?”

“Oh no, él es totalmente, él simplemente no habla español. No tendría idea de lo que estaba haciendo si no fuera por él. Sal es prácticamente el cerebro de toda esta operación, solo soy su compañero, la duda incluso eso.” _Why was his name being brought up?!_

“Pareces sobrecualificado para ser solo un compañero, Johnson. Deberías reevaluarte tú mismo, dar tú mismo mas credito.”

“Gracias señor, se lo agradezco.”

Sal tugged on Larry’s sleeve when it sounded to him like their conversation was over, finally directing the taller man’s attention unto him. “You done?”

“Oh, yeah, what’s up?”

“Help me move these boxes to the truck, will you?”

“Sure,” Larry smiled and followed Sal into the storage unit, to which the bald man signed quickly to his partner.

“Déjanos eso a nosotros, Johnson,” La Greaser said, pushing past the younger men and picking up the box himself, passing it to El Baldo and carrying the other one out. This left one box left.

Sal and Larry both bent down to take it.

“It’s fine, I’ve got it,” Sal said, gripping the bottom of it, to which Larry responded by taking hold of the opposite side—Sal’s side—and pulling it closer to him.

“Nope, you’re good, dude, I can take it.”

Sal kicked at Larry’s hands and pulled the box away from him. “I insist, I can handle it.”

The cardboard bottom _shuffed_ against the floor as it was tugged back and forth.

“Larry, come on, just give it—!”

“No way, you said you wanted my help! Let me—!”

“You’ve already been plenty helpful! Now _quit_!”

“Over my cold, dead body! I’m going to be the best goddamn helper you’ve ever seen!”

After a short bout of the boys trying to pull the box out of the other’s grasp, Larry managed to lift it over their heads so Sal couldn’t reach it. The blue-haired man promptly kicked him in the shin, causing him to stumble backwards with a yelp and drop their prize, giving Sal the opportunity to swoop in and snatch it out of the air. As it turned out, he had underestimated how much it weighed, and collapsed under the box, landing on the ground with an ‘ _oof_ ’ and a thud.

Larry scrambled up, and Sal briefly expecting inquiries as to whether or not he was okay and to be offered a hand and helped up, but instead the box on top of him was quickly snapped up and carried off in Larry’s gangly arms.

“YOU DUMB FUCK!” Sal cried and clambered off the ground, darting after Larry who was slowed by the weight of the drugs in the box, laughing as he was chased. Despite how long his legs were, Larry was no match in speed for Sal, who caught up to him as they were rounding the corner from the back where the storage units were to where their truck was parked. Caught up in the moment and adrenaline in his head instead of any logic or reason, Sal tackled Larry to the ground, spilling the contents of the box, catching the attention of El Baldo and La Greaser.

“Sal! What the fuck!” Larry laughed, quickly getting onto his hands and knees so as to buck the smaller man off. Sal tumbled onto the ground and attempted to make a rapid dash to the box, but a hand shot out faster than he could process and grabbed his ankle, sending him falling again. He landed on his stomach, the prosthetic shielding his face from smashing into the pavement, thankfully, but did not go unscuffed. The two were laughing breathlessly as they fought, but all traces of playfulness died when Sal looked up from the spot where he’d dropped to see the two Spaniards standing in front of him with very disgruntled expressions.

He stood up quickly, the shuffling behind him told him that Larry was, too, and looked at the two men.

“I’m sorry, we—we were just messing around,” he apologized hastily. When he didn’t receive a response, he remembered neither of them seemed to speak English. _Nice, way to remind me there, brain. Real helpful._ “Shit—Larry, c’mere, tell them that I’m sorry and we were just being stupid and messing around. Nothing was damaged, the drugs weren’t wasted, it was unprofessional and it won’t happen again.”

Larry stepped forward, anxiously fidgeting with his fingers. “Uh, lo sentimos mucho, solo estábamos jugando, señores. No era profesional de nosotros y no volverá a suceder.” The two men continued to glare, until La Greaser snickered, covered his mouth and looked down.

Sal and Larry shared a confused look, one that silently said _what the hell? He’s laughing? Hey, that’s probably a good thing, right? He could be skewering us right now, so laughing is better than being skewered_. El Baldo signed to his partner with a similarly confused expression, but La Greaser only chuckled.

“Ustedes dos me recuerdan mucho a mí y a Michel cuando éramos jóvenes. Es muy lindo. ¿Cuánto tiempo han estado juntos tú y campanilla, Johnson?”

Sal raised an eyebrow at Larry’s reaction to what La Greaser said; his face went red and he laughed nervously, spouting off nonsense in Spanish. _What did he say?_

“Oh, no, no, lo siento, señor, lo tiene todo mal. Él y yo no estamos ‘juntos', ¡en realidad solo nos conocimos hace unos días! ¡Sólo somos amigos!” Larry explained anxiously.

La Greaser cocked his head confusedly at Larry’s awkwardness and signed something to El Baldo before continuing. “No estas saliendo?”

“ _No_!”

“Bueno, definitivamente me engañaste, chico. Lo siento por el error. Solo tienes química, eso es todo.”

If it was even possible, Larry went even redder. “Lo siento, espera un segundo, ¿quieres? Sal, you win, you can go bring the box to the truck. I just wanna tell them something real quick, and I’ll meet you there. Is that okay?”

Sal’s instant thought was to be suspicious, his eye flitting from the tall dork he was working with to the two men he seemed to be getting along with unusually well.

“Why?”

“I promise I’ll tell you everything we’re saying in the car,” he said.

“No, I think I’ll just wait here with you,” Sal countered simply. “First rule in this line of business, never leave your partner alone with potential threats. It’s not like I can understand you anyway, so you can just continue your private conversation and I’ll clean up the shit,” he referred to the baggies of coke that fell out of the box when Sal tackled Larry. His tone left no room for argument, and he didn’t give the brunet a chance to protest when he knelt down and began picking up after their wrestling match.

“El me llamo su compañero,” Larry mumbled to the two men. “Um, ¿realmente crees que tengo una oportunidad con él?”

“Por supuesto. No mentiría sobre eso. Pero tenemos que irnos, así que buena suerte, ¿sí?”

“Derecha. Gracias.”

Sal stood up, holding the box (after having packed up all its contents) firmly. “Can we get going now?”

Larry nodded, his ears and face still red. “Yeah, I’m ready.”

As they filed into the truck, Sal noticed the men nod at Larry, who gave a friendly wave in return. The three large boxes were tucked in the back of the truck, giving the pair plenty of room to sit. The blue-haired man slid the Gameboy over to Larry when the vehicle started up as if it had just been assumed he would want to play again. Judging by Larry’s reaction, which was to raise his eyebrows curiously and slowly accept the device, _he_  sure hadn’t imagined Sal would be willing to share the device a second time.

A few minutes passed in silence, but the boys’ heads were both plagued by thoughts; when neither of them could take the awkward tension any longer, they both blurted out what had been on their minds in unison.

“Do you still wanna know what we were—?”

“Listen, I never thanked—”

The two blinked and looked at one another.

“Sorry,” Larry said. “You go first.”

Sal nodded. “Okay. Well, uh, I just wanted to say thanks for bailing us out back there. There was no way I could’ve done that on my own. And, if you _weren’t_ here, the deal couldn’t have been carried out, so... y’know. I’m glad you were here.” His face flared with blush that luckily, the brunet couldn’t see. So sue him, he wasn’t exactly used to giving out such heartfelt compliments to such pretty acquaintances. Worried that Larry would notice how red his ears were, Sal brushed his long hair over them; it meant having to deal with his fringe in his eye and looking homeless, but it was a price he had to pay.

“Oh, it’s—it’s no problem,” Larry shrugged with a chuckle. “Well, I mean, it kind of is, considering I could be arrested for assisting a major drug deal, huh?”

“Hey, you said you were okay with what you were signing up for!” “I know, I know, being in the mafia is still pretty cool. By the way, what are we gonna do with all that coke? ‘S Red planning on selling it or... y’know.” Larry made a gesture of placing his finger to one of his nostrils and inhaling.

“You can just ask whether or not he’s going to use it,” Sal said with a roll of his eye. “And as far as I know, a bit of both. Apparently we got more for our money, so there’s enough for our crew to have some fun with. Plus, it’s not just coke. There’s fentanyl and heroin, which I expect you’ll appreciate.”

Larry went a little pale and swallowed. “U-um. I think I’ll just stick to weed.” Catching Larry off guard, Sal laughed.

“I’m kidding, dude, you’re obviously way too soft for anything hardcore. We’ve got weed for days.” Larry sighed, relieved, and cackled too.

“Man, fuck you. And for your information, I am perfectly fine with not being a crackhead.”

“Yeah, you ought to stick to being a stoner.”

“Oh yeah? I will, thank you very much. What about you?”

Sal shrugged. “I don’t regularly do much of anything, but I’ve tried cocaine, E, molly... made me sick as all hell, though, and I don’t really like losing control of my inhibitions. Ash told me that once after I did a line, I tried to adopt all the cats in a pet store, made a dorito-mountain dew-strawberry ice cream smoothie in the blender which I drank all of, somehow, tried to hook up with Travis for god knows what reason, and tried to paint my prosthetic bright pink,” he finished, counting off things on his fingers as he listed them.

Meanwhile, Larry was laughing his ass off, nearly doubling over and the Gameboy long since abandoned. “Oh my god, that is the most incredible thing I’ve ever heard! I knew you had a couple spontaneous bones in your body!”

Sal scoffed. “I’m plenty spontaneous without the drugs. Can’t say I mind weed, though, so I’d be down for that if you are.”

“Only if you make me one of your smoothies.”

Sal shoved Larry off the bench.

“You have to tell me some of the stupid shit you’ve done high, now.”

“I guess it’s only fair,” he grinned, climbing back onto the bench, this time sitting closer to Sal. Neither of them knew if it was intentional, but the fact was that they had been separated by at least a metre and by a lack of openness before, and now it seemed that the dam had begun to crack. “Well, let’s see. I’ve thrown a whole glass of orange juice onto the bed instead of my phone, had a full on meltdown because snakes don’t have any arms, tried to microwave a pair of socks because I wanted them to be warm like when they come out of the dryer, wrote a novel, called every single person on my contacts to tell them I lost my phone and to ask if they’ve seen it around... dude, I can’t even remember everything, the list goes on and on.”

The pair laughed together over their own idiocy, for just those few moments forgetting that they were members of the mafia who had just exchanged two grand for boxes full to the brim of illegal drugs. In those few moments, they were just kids bonding over funny stories, kids who had more in common than they thought, kids who had unknowingly, temporarily taken their walls down for each other—

Sal stopped laughing. He was sharing too much. Larry shouldn’t know these random, useless things about him if he didn’t need to, and he didn’t need to. They were colleagues, not friends.

“Hey, what’s wrong?” Larry asked, immediately noticing the change of atmosphere. The concern in his tone made Sal’s toes curl and his stomach tighten.

“...Nothing. I, er. Just remembered something. It’s not important. Enjoy your game,” he mumbled, turning away from a confused and hurt Larry.

“Did I do something wrong?” he questioned, sounding like a kicked puppy. How badly Sal wanted to apologize for his abrupt coldness and continue the conversation as if nothing happened, but there were secrets that were secrets for a reason, and didn’t need to reach the ears of anyone.

“No. No, you didn’t do anything, dude,” he sighed, sparing Larry a glance out of pity. _Fuck. He even looks like a kicked puppy_. “I—I’m just tired. I’m gonna take a nap.”

The brunet nodded slowly. “Okay. I’ll wake you up when we get there. And, um, I... actually, nevermind. Just—you don’t have to be all closed off around me, y’know? You’re a cool person, Sal, and I’d like to get to know you if you’ll let me.”

Sal didn’t bother arguing that he wasn’t closed off, too focused on that last sentence.

_I’d like to get to know you if you’ll let me._

What bullshit.

And yet, it was the very bullshit he craved.

Once again, they spent the hours riding in silence, Sal having forgotten to ask about what Larry and the two men had been saying. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry for how terrible the Spanish indubitably is, i literally copied and pasted it from google translate. i do not speak Spanish. i barely even speak language. i'm usually too busy sitting at the bottom of a well and eating moss while coming up with the bullshit you have just read. anyway thank you for reading, i hope you enjoyed! thoughts and criticism is always appreciated, ilysm!!! <3
> 
> English Translations:
> 
> Are you the ones who represent the Red-Eyed Demons?
> 
> Are you or aren’t you? There will be problems if you are not.
> 
> No, no, I’m sorry for him, he doesn’t speak Spanish. Yeah, we’re the ones you’re looking for. 
> 
> Are you two alone?
> 
> It’s just us, except the driver. 
> 
> I’m going to go take a look. 
> 
> Alright. Let’s see some identification, then.
> 
> You have the money?
> 
> Things are in the back. Come on. 
> 
> You live around here?
> 
> No. I live in Nuevo Laredo. 
> 
> Oh. Is it nice there?
> 
> Not at all, it can be very dangerous in the Narco Zones. People always have weapons.
> 
> Fuck, that sounds horrible! Why don’t you leave?
> 
> My family lives there.
> 
> They should leave too, then!
> 
> I don’t have the money to leave at the moment. My partner and I are saving up, though. Where do you think would be a better place to live, Canada or Australia?
> 
> I’ve never been to either, but personally I’d put my bet on Canada. Yeah, it apparently gets cold as all hell there, but I’d rather be chilly than bitten by a ten-foot-long scorpion and dead. 
> 
> What did you say your name was again, kid?
> 
> Larry Johnson, sir. You?
> 
> Michel Ramirez. I like your vibe, Johnson. How have I never seen you around, before? Did you just start, or something?
> 
> Yeah, a few days ago. What about you?
> 
> Oh, I’ve been working in this field forever. My dad did, so I was pretty much signed up since I was a toddler. 
> 
> That kinda sucks, though, how you didn’t get to decide for yourself what you wanted to do. 
> 
> Yeah, it really does, doesn’t it? I wanted to be a baker. My gran used to make the finest pastries, and she shared all of her recipes with me.
> 
> You’ll be the best baker in Canada, Mr. Ramirez. 
> 
> Thanks, Johnson. By the way, your friend there, bluebell, he’s not very helpful, is he?
> 
> Oh no, he totally is, he just doesn’t speak Spanish. I’d have no idea what I was doing if it wasn’t for him. Sal’s pretty much the brains of this whole operation, I’m just kind of his sidekick, if even that.
> 
> You seem overqualified to be a sidekick, Johnson. You ought to reevaluate yourself, give yourself more credit. 
> 
> Thank you, sir, I appreciate it. 
> 
> Leave that to us, Johnson.
> 
> We’re very sorry, we were just messing around, sirs. It wasn’t professional of us, and it won’t happen again. 
> 
> You two remind me of myself and Michel when we were young. It’s very cute. How long have you and bluebell been together, Johnson?
> 
> Oh, no no no, sir, you have it all wrong! He and I aren’t ‘together’, we really only met a few days ago! We’re just friends!
> 
> You’re not dating?
> 
> Well, you definitely tricked me, kid. Sorry for the mistake. You just have chemistry, that’s all.
> 
> Sorry, hold on a second, will you?
> 
> He called me his partner. Um, do you really think I have a chance with him?
> 
> Of course. I wouldn’t lie about that. But we have to leave now, so good luck, okay?
> 
> yeet


	6. Stress

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Frustration boils over.

When Sal and Larry returned to the warehouse, a small crowd of people were eagerly awaiting their arrival; of course, it wasn’t to make sure the pair got in okay, some of them could be less concerned if the truck had spun off the highway into a ditch and spontaneously combusted as long as they got what they really wanted.

“Did you make the sale?” Robert queried when Sal hopped out of the back, the red head straining himself to look behind Larry, eyes rapidly searching for any tell-tale signs of success. They landed on the three boxes before excitedly meeting with Sal’s bright blue. Larry cockily swaggered up beside Sal, threw an arm lazily over the latter’s shoulder without warning (much to Sal’s disdain), and gave the crowd a smug, toothy grin as if he were some sort of hot shot movie star. 

“¡Sí!”

Upon confirmation, their fellow members of the Red-Eyed Demons cheered. Robert viciously noogied Sal in delight, two girls named Azaria and Sierra jumped up into the air before embracing each other in a tight hug, other miscellaneous faces congratulated and thanked Sal and Larry, and Larry was treating it all like he was famous and these were his fans. Sal didn’t know if he was kidding or not. 

“Hey, it’s no problem, the whole thing was really a breeze. Well, unless you count the fact that those were some  _ scary _ fuckin’ dudes—both of ‘em were at least six feet, probably bench pressed eight or nine hundred pounds on a daily basis,  _ and _ had rifles! Plus, neither of them spoke English—one of them didn’t speak at all—so  _ I _ had to step in and cover for Sal’s ass! But honestly, it was no big deal. Just another day in the mafia, amirite?”

Sal resisted the urge to shove his face into the dirt. For now. The primary thought on his mind was getting the stupid drugs inside and report the success of the deal to Red so that everyone would leave him alone in favour of flying to the moon (which would include ditching Larry for a little while, which was a bonus). Before he could do that, though, the part he hated most came first. 

The truck was parked right outside the tall, barbed wire fence, where inside, the dogs were prowling and staring at the large group hungrily. Unlike most dogs, these ones didn’t bark at the admittance of loud noises.  _ Freaky gits. _

Robert had volunteered to climb in the back and grab the boxes, sliding two out for Sal and Larry to carry, claiming responsibility for the third one. The truck door was shut, and then it was pulling away, leaving the crowd to pass through the dogs’ domain. Most people didn’t bat an eye during the process, as it was a regular, everyday thing, even if it was weird, but like Larry had oh-so-intuitively observed, Sal was afraid of the beasts. 

“Everyone ready?” Azaria asked, not waiting for the simultaneous head-nods and affirmations before flicking the numbers on the padlocks left, right, around; it was more so just a warning. It released its shackles with a click, and she moved onto the next one. A few minutes went by as she worked on unlocking them, and people talked quietly amongst themselves during the procedure. Sal stayed silent, feeling Larry’s eyes boring into the side of his head next to him. He was tempted to tell him to fuck off, but decided against it. Right now he just wanted to focus on dealing with those monsters and reaching the end of his task. 

Before he knew it, the gate was open and people were filing in, pulling Sal in with them as the people behind him moved. Reflexively, everyone knelt. Sal kept his gaze trained on the frosty grass underneath his knees, but from his peripherals, he could see the dogs silently padding their way over to inspect the intruders. 

The crisp air was filled with distant wind and the low sniffing from the dogs, and Sal squeezed his eyes shut as he felt one right there next to him. Its snout was so close to his face, and he hated it. He couldn’t verbally describe his hatred, but every single cell in his body was screaming fight or flight. But as soon as they came, the dogs left, their thin legs stalking off and their long tails gently swishing back and forth. Sal had never seen them fully wag their tails. He exhaled shakily, fighting the urge to cry, and got up, hoisting up the box, much to the pleasure of his crewmates, avoiding Larry’s knowing stare. 

Ash, Todd and Neil were waiting in the foyer with several others, who had equally as pleased reactions to the drugs as the rest of the crowd. Travis and David were there, too, but the former’s expression was nothing if not sour, while the latter’s eye twitched and he fidgeted nervously before leaving the room. Sal felt bad, aware that David had actually overcome a drug addiction a few years back. Seeing multiple boxes full of the shit he craved must have been a real punch in the gut. He made a note to apologize to the man later. 

“I’m going to go tell Red we got everything,” Sal announced over the general chatter. “If anyone touches  _ any _ of this before I come back with the go ahead, we’ll be using your skull as a makeshift bong. Ash, you’re in charge of guarding this, I don’t trust these lunatics not to control themselves.”

“Yes sir,” she replied sarcastically, a tone that very much spoke  _ I’m doing this because I chose to, not because I’m following your orders in any way, shape or form. You can’t boss me around, however I’m secretly happy that you trust me over everyone else here, also I’m not letting these assholes get more than me. _ Sal gave her a mock salute, which Ash replied to by flipping him off. 

The blue-haired man traipsed down the hallway with his hands by his sides to go and deliver the news to Red, which he had been fully intending to do alone. The thought of having company hadn’t even crossed his mind until—

“Yo, Salvador, hold up!” 

Larry jogged down to meet him, so Sal begrudgingly waited for him. 

“What?”

“What d’you mean ‘what’? I helped get the drugs, too, don’t you think I should come?”

Sal raised his eyebrows. “No, it’s not that, you’re totally allowed to come—not like I can stop you—I just dunno why you’d want to.”

“Why not?” the brunet questioned, falling into step with Sal. 

“Well, I mean... Red’s why?”

“I don’t understand.”

“He can be... h-hard to talk to sometimes,” Sal managed. “You know what? It doesn’t matter. Let’s just get this over with, then you can hit the Mary Jane as hard as you like.” 

“What about you?”

“What  _ about _ me?”

“You gonna be engaging in the doing of drugs?” Larry asked, wiggling his eyebrows suggestively, though Sal didn’t know why. 

“Eh,” he shrugged. “I might just snag some for later and go home. I’m pretty sick of... I dunno. People. It’ll be nice to hang out by myself for a bit.” 

Larry nodded as the pair rounded a corner. “I hear ya. People can be overwhelming.”

“Amen.”

As they walked through the facility, Sal couldn’t help but wonder if Larry just wanted to come along with him. He felt his face warm at the thought, but willed it away.  _ Don’t do that to me. I’d rather catch the plague than feelings. _ He chalked it up to being a little physically attracted to Larry—people wanted approval and attention from others they deemed appealing, it was just a natural thing. His chest felt a little lighter, knowing it wasn’t entirely his fault. 

Red was waiting in the doorframe for the pair when they showed up. His hands were behind his back, his black hair was as slick as ever, his gaze was expectant, cool and calculating. It made Sal shiver. 

“I heard you had returned from the deal,” he said slowly.  _ How the fuck did he find out so fast?! _ “I trust all went well?”

“Yes, sir,” Sal nodded. “Larry was helpful as I anticipated, and we were able to carry out the deal without any delay. We exchanged the $2,000 for the three boxes.”

“Good. Report the success of the transaction to Gibson, have Phelps bring the other two boxes to unit block B2, and you’re free to take a share of the earnings.” Sal nodded again in affirmation, and Larry saluted to Red with an overly serious expression as Red was turning away to move back into his office, making the former feel lightheaded from fear.  _ Nobody  _ joked around within Red’s vicinity, especially not  _ right to  _ him. 

Sal quickly smacked his arm down with murder in his eyes, hoping Red hadn’t noticed the action, but they weren’t so lucky. The tall, thin man paused about halfway inside before turning back around with an inquisitive look.  _ Oh god. Oh no. Fuck me.  _

“Were you...  _ saluting _ to me, Johnson?” he asked, borderline dangerously. Larry seemed to at least recognize that he had made a mistake, because Sal could practically feel the regret radiating off him; he didn’t think he’d have to nudge Larry or stomp on his foot to get him to reply ‘no’, but as it turned out, he probably should have. 

“Y-yes, sir. Sorry, it was supposed to be a joke. I won’t do it again.”

_ NO! MATE, WHAT THE FUCK?! WHY?! ARE YOU BRAIN-DAMAGED?!  _

Red arched his eyebrow and narrowed his eyes. “A joke,” he repeated flatly. 

“Y-yeah...? You know, like, something you say or do to make people laugh? I mean, I thought it was kinda funny, but everyone’s got their own taste—”

“I  _ know _ what a  _ joke _ is,” Red interrupted. “We do not do that around here, though. Sal, I recommend you keep him under control.” Leaving the pair stunned, Red shut the door behind him. 

After a moment, Larry breathed “Wow.”

“I know, right,” Sal agreed. Their next responses were said in unison. 

“What a douchebag.”

“He let us off easy.”

They whipped around to face each other incredulously. 

“ _ What _ ?”

“What do you mean, ‘what’?! You called the man who could have your whole family killed a  _ douchebag _ right outside his  _ door _ , that’s  _ what _ !”

“Well, he  _ is _ ! ‘Keep me under control’?! I’m not a fucking animal, Sal! I don’t need to be kept on a leash!” The blue-haired man groaned frustratedly and grabbed Larry’s arm, pulling him down the hallway where it was possible for them to be heard by said man Larry had just insulted. When they rounded the corner, Sal shoved him up against the wall and jabbed his finger into Larry’s chest.

“I told you before you joined the Red-Eyed Demons that you had to show  _ respect _ . That means sometimes keeping your trap shut, as difficult for you that may be, not turning every goddamn situation into a joke and  _ recognizing boundaries _ . And son, you just crossed a real fucking obvious one. You just marched from China into North Korean territory, can you understand that?”

“Look, I get it,  _ you’re _ scared, but  _ I’m _ not! It’s not as bad as you’re making it out to be! He just chastised me for doing something he didn’t like, it’s not like he cut my toes off as a warning!” Larry argued. 

“Don’t be fucking stupid! This is just as bad—if not  _ worse _ —than I’m making it out to be! Yes, I’m scared, any logical person  _ would  _ be! You haven’t been here long enough to really understand that, but you have to trust me when I tell you to  _ keep yourself in line _ .”

“Maybe  _ you’re _ the one out of line!” the brunet countered annoyedly. “I was just making a joke and he told me off for it! That should be the end of it! You’re the one who’s always trying to freak me out with, fucking, dangling people off balconies stories!”

“I’m not trying to—! I’m trying to save your ass! I was sent to kill you, and I’m doing the opposite of that!” Sal hissed furiously. Here he was, trying to do a good thing, and this was what he got for it. He didn’t need a thanks, he didn’t need a gift card or a trophy, but some  _ appreciation  _ for his hard work would be nice. 

“But it just seems like I’m destined to die since now I’m all mixed up with this travelling circus, huh? If you don’t kill me, apparently Red will!” He threw his hands up, letting them fall to his sides. “If  _ he  _ doesn’t kill me, I’ll just be shot by Mexican drug dealers! If it’s not them, I’ll be eaten alive by those creepy dogs outside! Literally, I could be killed by anything on any day, and it has nothing to even do with the Red-Eyed Demons! I could be hit by a car! I could contract leukemia! This seems like a  _ you _ thing more than anything! So  _ why _ are you so freaked out by him?”

Sal blanked, involuntarily taking a step back. How dare he ask that. Larry’s body was tense and his face was stressed, the bags under his eyes looking more prominent in this moment, but in lieu of Sal’s defensiveness, he seemed to reach clarity, realizing that he had struck a cord. 

“I—I didn’t—I’m sorry—” he stammered pathetically. 

“You wanna know why I’m ‘so freaked out by him’?” Sal asked lowly. His voice was cold and laced with anger; Larry had heard Sal upset before, but this was different. This was  _ livid _ . This was properly offended. Sal said nothing else, but instead slowly raised his hand and pointed to his face. His prosthetic. 

Larry paled. He’d really fucked up. When the brunet couldn’t say anything else, when all the apologetic words got stuck in his throat, Sal stomped away, leaving Larry alone in the hallway, reeling from what had just happened. 

“...fuck.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i wanted to get a bit of a fight done because tensions are high ;p  
> sorry it's a considerable amount shorter than the other chapters, i partially wanted to just throw one out in the open so that y'all are sated until i can write a longer one. and take note, longer ones a r e coming... >:)  
> thank you again so much for reading, comments and kudos add years onto my life! if i get enough, i'll live forever, so please keep leaving comments and kudos :)


	7. Visitor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Larry stops by unexpectedly.

Sal sat on the edge of his bed, a joint held loosely in his slender fingers, prosthetic discarded and dressed in a black muscle tank and baggy sweatpants. In his intoxicated state, he couldn’t help but chuckle at himself; was he even allowed to wear a muscle tank if he had no muscles? It didn’t matter, it’s not like he ever held back on wearing what he wanted before, he wasn’t going to start now. 

He glanced to his side where his prosthetic lay, and picked it up in his free hand, letting it rest on his thigh. It was a little heavy, which often put a strain on his neck, but it was necessary. Contrary to popular belief, he didn’t wear it just to hide his ugly mug. It supported his broken facial structure. It held the broken pieces of his face together; he was missing part of his nose, some cheek bone and portions of his jaw. The right side of his face sagged if he went without it for too long, which could be painful. The skin wasn’t necessarily raw anymore, but it had been so damaged that lots of it had been torn away, which made him susceptible to infection, and the prosthetic prevented that.

He sighed, running his hand over the scuffed mask. When he was young, he couldn’t stand his appearance, but he had gotten used to it. He could look in the mirror without wanting to scream or vomit, now. However, this part of him was his reflection, if that made any sense. It did to him. 

Sal took one last, long drag from the joint before dipping it into a glass of water by his bed and dumping it into the bin so he wouldn’t set his apartment complex on fire. It caught up to him a couple moments later, in his hazy state, that he had just used the very same glass of water that his eye was floating in. 

He swore, reaching out for the cup and missing the first time. The second time nearly resulted in him knocking it off the dresser and onto the floor, but he was able to steady it before that happened. His depth perception was below average on a good day, but add being stoned to the equation and he was pretty much the definition of a walking disaster. On the way to the sink, Sal managed to stub his toe, clip his shoulder against a wall while rounding a corner and step on his cat Gizmo’s tail. 

Apologizing profusely to the cat who hissed in pain, Sal instantly abandoned his mission to replace the glass of water in favour of making up his mistake to his pet. He retrieved from the cupboard some catnip that he often rewarded Gizmo with (for really no reason, but he spoiled that cat rotten) and knelt down, holding some out in his hand for him. 

“Here, c’mere, buddy,” he mumbled, genuinely concerned that he would be resentful towards him for his clumsiness. Whenever Ash had been over, she joked about Sal anthropomorphizing Gizmo to the equivalent of a human child, and that he was clever enough to recognize Sal was constantly tripping over everything, and had probably gotten used to it. At the time they had laughed, but Sal being high off his ass was actually hopeful Gizmo  _ did _ understand and would forgive him. The cat gave him a glare before rubbing his head against Sal’s hand and enjoying the catnip. Sal assumed he was forgiven. 

When he remembered why he had come into the kitchen in the first place, he left Gizmo to roll around on the floor and enjoy the remains of the catnip in lieu of opening the cupboard (nearly whacking himself in the face with the door) and finding a new glass for his eye. 

As he was running tap water underneath the glass, however, he wondered if the water was the best thing to keep the eye in. Sal’s thought process was that in order to keep it as white as possible, he needed to keep it in a white beverage. This led to him bending down and giving Gizmo the water he intended to use, instead pulling out a second glass from the cupboard which he filled up with milk and dropped his eye into. The sight was kind of funny, the eye looking back at him from the murky liquid when it tapped against the side of the cup, but when it floating in the middle, it was practically invisible.

He left it on the kitchen counter, having no more use for it. He lumbered back to his bedroom, rubbing his face sleepily and glanced at the clock on his way there; 3am. At 6pm he and Larry had departed to make the drug deal. They had arrived at 8:30pm and spent roughly a half hour there. By 12am, they were back at the warehouse and delivered the boxes to the facility. At 12:17, Sal stormed out (but not before snagging a fair amount of weed for himself from the box that had been relatively cleaned out by the others) and walked back to his apartment after that argument he’d had with Larry. Since then he had been smoking alone at his place and watching old horror movies he had rented a week ago. He should return them soon. 

Sal flopped onto his bed and accidentally landed on his prosthetic, which jabbed painfully into his ribs. He cursed and rolled off of it before kicking it onto the floor amongst his dirty laundry and garbage, realizing how faint he actually felt; he’d never been great at handling his intake of weed and usually needed people with him when he was doing it to moderate him. In his hazy state, he felt as if he were floating, and he could hear his own heartbeat.

Abruptly, though, he couldn’t hear it anymore. Sal panicked, thinking his heart had stopped and he was about to die. He bolted upright and felt through the thin fabric overtop of his chest for his pulse, sighing in relief when he could feel the steady beating of his heart. But he couldn’t  _ hear _ it.

When he heard that thumping sound again, he slowly made the connection to the noise and something else. He stood up, listening for the sound intensely, and was met with it a few moments later; Sal’s plan was to follow it so he could figure out what it was, but when he realized it was coming from the front of his apartment, the only thing it could have been was the front door. He groaned and picked his prosthetic up off the floor before fastening the straps and slogging towards the front of his place. 

Looking through the peephole to see who it was didn’t even occur to him until he had unlocked the door and swung it open, where an unexpected guest had his hand raised, about to knock again. The sight of Larry standing in the hallway outside of his place with a sheepish grin was enough to sober Sal up by a small margin. 

“How the fuck did you find out where I live?” he demanded immediately. His instant accusatory tone wiped the grin off of Larry’s face, and the brunet looked down, fidgeting with the hem of his sleeve. 

“Um. Ash told me.”

“ _ Why _ ?”

“She, uh, was pretty stoned, and I just kind of asked.”

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Sal spat. “You took advantage of someone whacked out of their mind?”

“No!” he countered, raising his hands in defence. “No, I promise that’s not it at all, I just needed to talk to you!” 

“Well  _ I  _ don’t need to talk to  _ you _ . Bye,” he replied simply before shutting the door and locking it before Larry could get another word in. Sal had barely taken a step to retreat back to his bedroom until Larry was knocking at the door again. He quickly ran through his options in his mind, which were to ignore him or tell him to fucking go away. If he ignored him, Larry would eventually just leave and go home, but if he gave him attention Sal would have to hear him out, which he was determined not to do.

“Sal, I will literally wait here all night! I just wanted to say that I’m sorry, dude, and it’s not happening over the phone!” 

And there went option one, ignoring the motherfucker, right down the drain because of his stubbornness. Sal briefly wondered whether or not he was bluffing, before realizing  _ of course he’s fucking not _ . He groaned angrily, turned back on his heel and swung the door back open. 

“You have sixty seconds before I shut this door again.”

“Okay, okay, okay,” Larry breathed, accepting the challenge; “I’m really, really sorry about what happened earlier. I don’t even really know why I was so pissy at the time, maybe I was stressed or something, but I feel terrible about what I said. You’re right, I should have just stayed in my lane and did what you said. You’re the reason I’m still alive, man, and I’m an idiot. And I’m sorry for saying all those things about you being scared. I totally had no right, and I get it if you don’t feel like forgiving me. That’s, uh, that’s all I wanted to say. So. Thanks for hearing me out.”

“Thanks for taking less than sixty seconds.” Sal leaned against the doorframe with a sigh and ran his hand through his hair. “Look, don’t worry about it, okay? He’s —kind of got that effect on people.”

“Red? What do you mean?” Larry asked, cocking his head curiously. The action made Sal crack a tiny smile because it reminded him of a small puppy. 

“I dunno. People get tense around him. They’re reactive and short easier.”

“Almost like a demon.”

Sal huffed a laugh. “I guess so.” 

The conversation stilled when Larry suddenly seemed interested in something specific, forgetting all else, and that something was Sal’s eye. He squinted at it hard, trying to get a good look at it, and the fogginess of Sal’s brain prevented him from reacting right away. When he caught up with reality, he smacked his hand over his good eye so Larry couldn’t see. 

“Stop it.”

“Your eye is so red,” he commented amusedly. “Dude, you’re high as fuck.”

“Be thankful that I am. If I were any more sober, I might have already killed you for showing up at my door at three in the morning without an invitation.” 

Larry laughed, but then he seemed to register something; he broke into a shit-eating grin and wiggled his eyebrows. “Oh, so you’re saying I’d be more than welcome to come by if you  _ had _ invited me at three in the morning?”

Sal swiftly kicked at Larry’s shin to shut him up, but the weed and his lack of depth perception caused him to miss, and Larry danced out of the way victoriously. 

“Don’t get cocky, I won’t miss the next time,” Sal reminded him, but he was smiling beneath his prosthetic. He couldn’t help that he was entertained by Larry’s antics. 

“Hah, you  _ wish _ ,” the brunet said smugly. That alone made Sal hang his head, cover the mouth of his mask and chuckle quietly into the palm of his hand. “What are you even still doing here? Your sixty seconds ended like three minutes ago. Go home, fuckface.” 

“Oh... yeah, about that,” Larry began, sheepishly rubbing the back of his neck and avoiding eye contact. Sal narrowed his eyes suspiciously. 

“What?”

“It kind of took me two hours to walk here because it was dark and I kept getting lost—which I don’t regret at all, by the way—and I, uh... well, you know, I really don’t want to get mugged on the way back, and—”

“On top of showing up at my place unannounced, you have the audacity to ask me if you can stay the night?”

“Please? BFF? I’ll do anything,” Larry begged, giving Sal puppy dog eyes and sticking his bottom lip out. “Salvador? Sal Diego? Salty Fisher? Salvestor? Salmon? Silly Sally? Salmon Fish?”

Resisting the temptation to deck him right then and there in the middle of the hallway, Sal groaned and walked inside, not closing the door so that Larry could follow in after. Behind him, the brunet cheered happily and shut and locked the door; a very fitting action for how the remainder of the night would go, Sal being trapped alone with this dumb fucker with no hope of rescue. 

Yet for some reason, it didn’t seem that bad. 

“Don’t touch anything,” Sal warned him. “And if you really want to make it up to me, you’ll shut up and not bother me. You can sleep on the floor.”

Larry looked around fascinatedly, apparently oblivious to Sal’s harsh rules. “What’s wrong with the couch?” he asked, pointing at the futon in the sitting room. 

“No. Don’t touch my couch. You can sleep with a towel on the floor. You don’t get a pillow.” 

“That’s okay, I can use my hoodie.”

Sal had been expecting resistance to his bitchiness on Larry’s part, so couldn’t help the surprise that hit him when he received no reaction.  _ Good _ , he thought, but unconsciously continued to try and rile his guest up. He walked into his room and left the door open before unpausing his movie,  _ The Silence of the Lambs _ , and waited. Sal knew the tall idiot couldn’t resist sticking his nose where it didn’t belong, and sure enough, after a few minutes, Larry poked his head in through the door. 

“Hey, whatcha watching?”

“None of your business,” Sal quipped back, despite his stoned mind wanting it to be Larry’s business. He was way too high to question his actions, or why he was doing what he was. 

Larry went quiet at Sal’s response, perhaps figuring he was unwelcome, but as if he could hear Sal’s inner thoughts yelling at him to push just a little more, he persisted.

“What’s it called?”

“Why do you care?”

Larry shrugged. “From out there, it sounds cool. What genre is it, horror?”

“No, it’s romance.” Screams erupted from the TV as a man attempted to eat a woman alive. 

“Sounds like they’re really into one another,” Larry said slowly. Sal snickered at his sarcasm. 

“If by ‘into one another’ you mean  _ literally _ , because Hannibal Lector is a cannibal, then sure.”

Larry cackled at that. “Cannibal Hannibal. Can I watch?”

“No.”  _ Yes. _

“Please? We’re having a sleepover, we should watch movies together! There’s plenty of room on your bed for me to squeeze in, come on!” He gave Sal puppy-dog eyes, the very same ones he used to weasel his way into Sal’s apartment in the first place. Even though he knew he would eventually cede and let him in, Sal decided to put up a bit of a fight beforehand. 

“No. Go away.”  _ Stay. _

“Aww, you don’t mean that,” the brunet cooed, and poked the cheek of Sal’s mask tauntingly.  _ When had he gotten so close? I don’t remember him even fully coming in. _

“No, I totally do.”  _ I don’t. _

“Just for a bit?”

“No, fuck off.”  _ Fuck me. _

“Okay, well what if I just...”

Larry raised his arms and let himself flop right on top of Sal, who wasn’t expecting that, and cried out. 

“Fuck! Oh my god,  _ fine _ , you can watch the stupid movie! Get the fuck off of me, you dumb slut!” the blue-haired man screeched, angrily clawing at the taller man and trying to push him off, even though he would much rather Larry stayed on top of him like that. 

The brunet laughed boisterously and rolled off of him, so they were laying next to each other on their stomachs and they both fell quiet. Sal was no longer paying any attention to the movie, though; all he could concentrate on was the heat of Larry’s hip barely brushing against his thigh. With his lack of inhibition, he shifted closer into the other man’s warmth, and the contact made Larry shiver. Sal pretended not to notice, keeping his gaze fixed on the screen that his focus wasn’t on. 

After a moment of internal debate, Larry cleared his throat. 

“Uh, I hope you don’t mind if I copied your idea of bringing some weed for the road,” he admitted. “Do, uh, do you mind if I smoke in here? I can go outside if you want.” Sal turned his head to face him, and took into consideration the pink flush across the brunet’s face. 

“I don’t care,” he responded, but his tone was softer than before. Rougher. Larry was sure to notice, but that was okay—he wanted him to. Larry nodded in affirmation of his permission and removed the little baggie from his hoodie pocket, a joint already having been prepared. 

“Do you have a lighter I could...?”

“Bedside table,” Sal said, jerking his thumb behind him in the direction he remembered leaving it. Larry quietly thanked him shuffled behind Sal to the end of the bed where the lighter was and picked it up, flicking it several times before a tiny flame burst from the head of the small device. Out of the corner of his eye, Sal watched Larry light the joint and raise it to his lips, really taking in the way he inhaled around it and blew out the smoke from his mouth with a sigh. Part of him wished Larry would stay back there for reasons that didn’t need naming. Larry crawled back next to Sal, laying on his stomach and silently offered the other man a hit. 

“Nah,” Sal replied, raising his hand to refuse the joint. “Had one earlier.”

“Did you?” Larry joked. “I hadn’t noticed.” To Sal, the movie had become nothing but background noise. His primary focus was the brunet’s breaths next to him, and the mesmerizing way the smoke twisted and curled in the air before dissipating. Sal resisted the urge to raise his hand up and bat at the smoke, not for the sake of getting rid of it, but just to see his hand go through it. 

“You know what’s fun? Bowling,” Larry said randomly. “I dunno why I’m thinking of that, but I haven’t gone in ages. Last time was with my mom for my fourteenth birthday, and I’m pretty sure most of the balls went into the little ditch thing in between lanes. What’s that thing called again?”

“Man, fuck if I know, I’m high off my ass, too.”

“Wait, remember when we were talking about stupid shit we’ve done high when we were in the truck earlier? Have you done anything stupid since then?”

“Uh, no I don’t—wait, FUCK!” Sal abruptly jumped up off the bed, startling Larry into nearly dropping his joint and hurried into the kitchen, where his glass eye was still floating in a glass of milk. “What the fuck! I’m so dumb! Why would I— _ what the fuck _ ?!” He pulled the dripping eye from the beverage, tipped the milk out over into the sink and furiously rinsed it under the running faucet. Larry curiously followed him into the kitchen, wondering what the hell just prompted Sal’s random freakout. The tense moment was ruined, and would have to be rebuilt from the ashes it had been burnt down into. 

Before he could ask, Sal groaned out in defeat, “I put my eye in milk. I thought it would keep it white, what the fuck is wrong with me.”

Larry exploded with laughter, almost doubling over in delight. “Oh my god, that’s incredible! You put your fake eye in milk, holy  _ shit _ !” Sal ran his hand down his prosthetic, just letting Larry tire himself out, and after a few minutes of thorough cleaning, let the eye drop into a third glass of water. At the rate he was going, he’d have a lot of dishwashing to do by the end of the week. 

Sal’d had a long day. He wanted some relief. And it had knocked on his door not long ago in the form of Larry Johnson; Larry Johnson, laughing without a care in the world in his kitchen, whose eyes had wrinkles next to them because of how often he smiled, who was tall, lanky and muscular, whose long hair was so pretty and casually messy and just  _ begging _ to be pulled—

The brunet’s laughter quieted when he felt Sal’s eye burning deep holes into him, and straightened to his full height with a confused expression. “You okay, dude?”

“Yeah,” Sal replied after a beat, and took a step towards Larry. “But I could be better.”

“Couldn’t we all be?” he grinned, but there was anxiety lacing his words. “You know what would just, blow the day away and make it perfect? Bowling. We should go bowling sometime. Wanna go now?” Sal’s eye was dark through the eye-holes of his prosthetic and filled with something deeper than Larry was accustomed to. Something hotter. He swallowed. 

“I dunno, I can think of something way more fun than an hour of bowling,” Sal slurred, inching ever closer to Larry, who scoffed and accepted the gesture as friendly, despite his blushing face. 

“Yeah, you’re right—two hours of bowling would be way better,” he attempted, but it was getting increasingly difficult for him to think clearly as Sal continued to back him up into the wall, where when his back hit the surface, it was made evident that there was nowhere else for him to go. 

Sal’s slender hands ran up the taller man’s arms to his shoulders teasingly, where he let them rest for the time being. “I’m not talking about bowling.” His touch was so light and so unlike Sal, Larry was tempted to believe this wasn’t really Sal, but some clone of the blue-haired man who was seriously using his good looks to his advantage. Maybe some horny ghost had possessed him?

“S-Sal, u-um—w- _ where _ is all this coming from?”

“Oh come on, don’t pretend you don’t know,” he mumbled. “I want you and I know you want me, too. I’ve seen the way you look at me.”

“Wh— _ what _ way?!” he cried quietly, ears flaring red. Sal only chuckled and through the eye-holes of his mask, stared at Larry with what could only be described as bedroom eyes. His hands then left their place on Larry’s shoulders and began trailing downwards, eliciting shivers from the latter. 

The brunet quickly took hold of Sal’s thin wrists (briefly thinking how the guy needed to fucking eat more) to prevent them from doing anything else. “Sal, you’re high and you’re not thinking straight.”

“I often do have trouble thinking straight,” he replied smoothly; on account of his hands being restrained, Sal moved his torso flush against Larry’s so that they could still be touching, who squeezed his eyes shut, trying to will the blood in his body to stop whatever the fuck it thought it was doing and go back to helping his brain form coherent thoughts. Was that how it worked? He didn’t know, he couldn’t form a thought coherent enough to process it. All he could register was Sal and the way he smelled, his shallow breaths, the rosiness of his ears and how it surely matched his face...

But god, he wanted  _ nothing _ more than to indulge himself and touch Sal back. The other man’s statement had been absolutely true—of course he wanted Sal. Who wouldn’t? His delicate body that held so much more strength than it appeared to, his gorgeous, soft and casually messy hair, the tantalizing mystery of his face... he was an angel if ever Larry had seen one. 

“I-I mean, a-are—are you sure?” Larry managed. 

Sal grinned—though Larry couldn’t see it, he could just tell—and pressed his half-hard length against the latter’s thigh. “I think I’m pretty sure.”

Larry let out a breath he didn’t know he was holding, and ceded to Sal’s ministrations.

“...Okay.” He placed his hands on Sal’s hips, letting his worry drown in the alcohol and weed he’d ingested, and gripped them tightly. Sal could no longer find any trace of hesitation or worry on the brunet’s tired face. It had all been replaced by anticipation and lust. “What do you want?”

“I don’t care. I just want you,” Sal whispered and unbuckled the bottom strap of his prosthetic, which he moved upwards just enough to expose his mouth, which he then used to begin kissing at Larry’s neck, warranting pleasured humming and heavy breathing. As much as he wanted to feel him there, Larry wanted to feel  _ all  _ of him as quickly as possible, which required moving. 

“Sal—” he choked back a moan when the blue-haired man sucked particularly hard on one spot—“bed. Now.”

Sal nodded vigorously and much to both of their chagrins, pulled away from Larry and grabbed his wrist, tugging him after. 

How they managed to stumble all the way back to Sal’s bed without casualty, neither of them knew. The only thing that mattered was that their last inhibition had been killed. 

And with that, a dam had been broken. Fittingly a water-related metaphor, because after being laid gently on his bed, Sal shamelessly licked along Larry’s chapped lips, and it was all tongue from then on, completely skipping the chaste, loving kissing that usually occurred before making out. The word ‘loving’ was key—they weren’t in love. They were horny kids with an appreciation for one another’s bodies. 

Their mouths worked in synch, and when they pulled apart, they were practically gasping. Had it been up to Larry, he might have taken another couple seconds to catch his breath, but as he should have expected, Sal was more hardcore than he could ever dream of being, and immediately grabbed the back of the brunet’s neck and pulled him back down. It was awkward kissing him with that mask in the way, and a little uncomfortable, even, so Larry, much to both of their chagrins, lifted his head out of Sal’s range and stared down at him. 

Both men panted harshly, and the consuming gaze Sal was giving him made Larry shiver. 

“Uh, I don’t know if I’m totally out of line here or whatever, but can you take the prosthetic off? Just for a bit? It’s sort of in the way.”

Sal took a minute to register this, perhaps slower than he would have been without the weed, before coming to a conclusion. “Nah. We’re done kissing, anyway. Let’s get this show on the road.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)  
> yeah sorry for leaving it on a cliffhanger like that but idk how to write smut. if you guys want i can try but lemme know: skip it or s i n i t  
> anyway yeet yoot here's another chapter sorry for the delay and whatnot, more updates probably coming after exams :)  
> btw, some of the description of sal's prosthetic was inspired by doctorcanon on tumblr :p


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